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i'. •=a:-^ 






ERUDLA , 

(d ’ ▼ ’ ^ 

THE FOREICN MISSIONARY 10 OBR WORLD; 

OR, 

THE DREAM OF ORPHAAOS. 


BY 


Author of “ Five Years in the West. 


A; 



— — o«o 


PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. 
BARBEE & smith, AGENTS, NASHVILLE, TENN. 

1890. 


A “VaE. 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, 
By William Allen, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Wasltington. 


C 


DEDICATION. 


To Woman, Who Sacrifices Most for the Upbuilding of Christ’s 


Kingdom, and AVho Suffers Most through Present 


Vices and Evils, This Little Volume Is 
Kespectfully Dedicated. 

The Author. 

( 3 ) 


INTRODUCTION. 


To write a book in this country and in this age that will do . 
good is certainly a public benefit. The author assumed the task 
of this little volume with no other design than that good might 
come of it. At this time he can only build a hope for such a re- 
sult. He fully recognizes the manhood that should characterize 
the life of all public teachers, and indeed of all people, in order 
to the right progression of this world ; and that all must see that 
there can be no general and lasting happiness only as it is built 
in the morality that springs of the Christian institution. 

The fiction form, adopted to inculcate moral truths and doc- 
trine, has been assumed because in this age and country many 
will not read when things are otherwise written, and yet all 
may read without corruption. 

The book is written to rebuke the most general sinful prac- 
tices and evils, to strengthen the faith of God’s children, and to 
illustrate the right ways of advancement, lasting peace, and hap- 
piness. 

The character, “Erudia ” or the foreign missionary, is intro- 
duced, it is hoped, with not too much strain on the imagination ; 
indeed, the day of eternity may wake us up to the wonderful 
improvement, great plans, and high usefulness of some of God’s 
children. “We now see through a glass darkly.” We know of 
wonders in the moral universe, yet may we not be in the veriest 
ignorance when compared with that we shall see and know in 
the fullness of our development through Him who has loved us 
and will raise even us through faith to high usefulness by his 
Son. William Allen. 













I 

^ . 

I 

» 



CHAPTER I. 


T HEEE lives a man who has just beyond liis gar- 
den a beautiful walnut grove, planted twelve or 
fifteen years ago from the seed. The trees are in 
rows, and have now attained their most attractive 
comeliness, exhibiting a freshness and smoothness of 
trunk and branch, and that denseness of foliage so 
bewitching on a hot summer day. Neither he nor 
the little girl that dropped the walnuts as he covered 
them in had any thought then of the future history 
of the coming grove. He naturally expected to see 
the germ from each seed when spring-time should 
come round, a gradual growth that comes of pass- 
ing years, a beautiful shade and bearing of fruit, 
but nothing more. 

The Gkove a Place of Meditation. 

Of evenings when business affords leisure it is the 
custom of this man on warm summer days to resort 
to this beautiful grove and silently mingle his medi- 
tations with the caroling of birds and the humdrum 
of multitudinous insect creatures which seem to de- 
rive from the grove and shade joy and happiness 
equal to his own. The happiness of these other 

( 7 ) 


8 


ERUDIA. 


creatures increased his and made him feel the glad- 
der that he had in some good hour planted the wal- 
nuts, and with care had nursed the young trees. 

His retirement here does not inspire the loneliness 
of deep solitude, but wistfully inclines the soul to a 
rising inflection by which it looks on the brighter 
pictures of life and the general goodliness of this 
world. It seems to him a good place to cultivate the 
soul, for all things appear favorable to pure medita- 
tions and to naturally resist the grosser elements of 
thought that spring from malice, envy, and melan- 
choly. 

It is the custom of this man to retire from the 
beautiful seat of these meditations as the sun sinks 
under the horizon. This he does cheerfully and 
kindly, giving place to doves and numerous other 
birds which seem anxious to hide from their night 
enemies within the thick foliage. But on a certain 
evening he either fell asleep or was caught in a rev- 
erie, and when he awoke the darkness of the evening 
had begun to appear. He felt like reproaching him- 
self lest at so late an hour he might disturb the 
birds that had come for protection and rest. 

This Man Meets a Beautiful Ckeature. 

He began cautiously and quietly to make his way 
to his dwelling; but just as he reached near the point 
where the path through the garden meets the grove 


ERUDTA. 


9 


lie saw standing just at the corner of the two paths 
a creature that immediately and deeply impressed 
him that she did not belong to this world of ours. 
The dress was female attire, with no attempted dis- 
play of fashion; the fittings were neat, and displayed 
a most symmetrical form. She wore a single jewel, 
beautifully bright, and glittering even in the twilight. 
It was a key which indicated wisdom to unlock the 
mysteries of the human heart, and to open the doors 
of right progression for this world of ours. Embrac- 
ing the upper part of the forehead was a beautiful 
crescent just large enough to contain in bold type the 
word Instructor, The eyes were exceeding bright, 
the face and hands delicately white. The form stood 
very erect and with so quiet and soft a mien that it 
afforded entertainment rather than produced alarm. 
The dress was of the purest white delicately trimmed 
with glittering ribbon. 

The Creature Speaks. 

The man stood for a moment in doubt, wonder, 
and admiration, overawed by a superior presence. 
The beautiful creature smiled attentively and so win- 
somely tender that no thought of ghost or hobgoblin 
arose in his mind. His eyes became fixed on the 
word Instructor^ which stood so prominently to the 
view, and which even shone more brightly than other 
parts of the glittering crescent. As lie was wonder- 


10 


ERUDIA. 


ing what character of instruction the wonderful creat- 
ure would give, or whether, indeed, she would conde- 
scend to give any at all, she in a musical, silvery 
voice broke the silence as follows: 

“ I am not a creature of your world, and I never was. 
Neither am I an angel, in the strict sense, on an er- 
rand of justice or mercy. I belong to a class of 
creatures which under graduation can be trusted. 
The Lord God created our class at an age so long 
ago that it would tax your arithmetic to tell the num- 
ber of years. We were only a few thousand at first, 
and like the race of men of your world were made 
under law. Of our number only a few hundred have 
attained to that perfection in life which it was our 
privilege to attain, and by which we are fully trusted 
and are permitted to act on our own judgment inde- 
pendently in the universe. My sisters and I are hap- 
py in our work, and they as busy as I. Some of them 
are more excellent and enterprising in good works. I 
have come to your world for good, but not to give a 
new revelation. I was in existence when your world 
was swinging in space, chaotic and void. I heard the 
music of the ‘morning stars,’ and the shouts of the 
‘ sons of God,’ when the Lord God set your earth in 
order and laid the foundations of your race. 


How THE Creature Learned of Our World. 

“ I have been in the realm where the books of the 


ERUDIA. 


11 


universe are kept. Many of these I have read, and 
many are the worlds I desire to visit, and all these 
and more I shall finally visit if mayhap good shall 
come of my labors. The book of your world I have 
studied with care up to the present date, and I am 
fondly thinking my visit to your world will do 
good. I propose to impart such information as, 
if heeded, will inspire the spirit of right progres- 
sion and vastly increase the happiness of your race. 
This I speak on the ground of personal experiences, 
and of observation in a thousand instances and en- 
compassing a period that runs through a cycle of 
time. Some worlds I have known to be similarly af- 
flicted to your own, and yet briefly rise to that moral 
grandeur that springs of disinterested friendship. 
Latent elements exist in the nature and character of 
your race, which by reaching out into the possibilities 
of which you are capable, will make you the peer of 
any class of intelligences in the universe. 

The Eakth a Wondekful Planet, and on It a 
Wonderful Eace. 

‘‘This earth upon which you live, though small it 
be in comparison, is, if it be lawful so to speak, one 
of the specially favored spots of the Lord God. As 
a wwld you have had wonderful tokens of tender 
mercy, of labored love, of fatherly care and forbear- 
ance, and of Divine manifestation and instruction. 


12 


EEUDIA. 


seemingly to us who have been studying your history 
amply sufficient to have reared you to higher devel- 
opment. I do not allude to that which is material in 
its character and is pleasing to fleshly eyes and grati- 
fying to fleshly hearts; for your world has enough, 
and perhaps overmuch, of that material development 
which tends to self -laudation. But the things of 
most importance to your race, and which lie as foun- 
dations to your best progress and highest happiness 
have not kept pace with the material progress of your 
world. The things of most importance have not that 
appreciation, and have never had except in a few 
humble quarters, that will raise your race out of 
greed, envy, malice, and all these baser qualities, 
which, when belonging to a race capable of feeling 
moral obligation, exhibit them as cousins to those 
herds whose tongues are made to poison, horns to 
hook, voices to frighten, and inventions to destroy. 

“ I speak it reverently, yet in view of the history of 
your world it appears that man was a poor apology 
to be put on trial. Nothing but the known resources 
of heaven that would grant unto him his present pro- 
bation would have made it lawful even in the divine 
Character to create man. The battle to raise him out 
of his moral decline is the most thrilling that angels 
watch, and it deeply stirs the souls of intelligences 
in all quarters of the universe wheresoever the advent- 
ures and story of the cross are communicated. It 


ERUDIA. 


13 


teaches a manifestation of the Lord God that had be- 
fore been unknown. The creation of man is an epoch 
in the universe.” 

A Moment of Silence — Tells Her Name — 
Christens the Man. 

The beautiful creature who seemed so much inter- 
ested for the welfare of our world spoke these last 
words with a soft, falling cadence and then for a mo- 
ment was silent No thought came into the man’s 
mind that he could speak. He was overawed by a 
superior intelligence that had never belonged to this 
world of ours, neither to the general class of angels, 
and yet so thoroughly acquainted with the wants of 
our race. In the midst of the silence that would 
otherwise have been painful there w^as opened to him 
a new field for meditation and thought. Under the 
surprise and wonder with which he was seized, how 
long before he could have recovered self-possession 
and opened his lips he can never know. 

The creature who showed such interest for the wel- 
fare of our world, recognizing the surprise and won- 
der that had seized the man, brought relief and again 
opened her lips as follows: “My name is Erudia. 
As 1 shall see you again and again, you may call me 
by my name, Erudia. It is and ever shall be with- 
out a title. You shall apply to it none of the culti- 
vation and etiquette of your world; it is simply Eru- 


14 


ERUDIA. 


dia, and it is not so beautiful as the names of some 
of my sisters, whose excellence and attainments have 
exceeded my own. This introduction of myself is 
sufficient for the evening. It is growing late; only 
let me find you in this grove at early twilight of ev- 
enings, and I shall instruct you in the paths which, 
if heeded, will greatly aid your world in all right 
progression. Good-night, Orphanos.” 

Okphanos Meditates. 

Upon this introduction of herself and christening 
of the man, Erudia receded, but rather vanished out 
of sight more than otherwise. Orphanos was left 
alone to ponder the strange phenomenon. He walked 
slowly and meditatively through the garden to his 
house. “Can it be,” thought he, “that there are in 
the universe other intelligent, invisible creatures than 
redeemed spirits and angels? Can it be that some of 
these in the passing ages have advanced from a hum- 
ble creation to really enjoy the privilege of the uni- 
verse?” But when he thought of the beautiful, virt- 
uous, and disinterested Erudia his soul rose to higher 
admiration of the Lord God whose character and 
nature allowed it to be thus. 

“What then,” thought he, “may not man be! and 
to what purity and honor may he attain by applying 
himself and reaching out into the possibilities lying 
out before him I ” “ Good-night, Orphanos.” How sor- 


ERUDIA. 


15 


rowfully this adieu would have fallen on his ears but 
for the promise that fair Erudia would meet him 
“again and again.” But how sweetly it fell when it 
was only for the night, and the next evening would 
bring another interview, and with it instruction wise 
with age and experience. 


CHHPTER II 


© EPHANOS was in the beautiful walnut grove as 
early as the last hiding rays of the setting sun. 
He sat down upon an inviting bending bough, oblivi- 
ous to every thing except the promised meeting with 
Erudia. His soul was thrilled with the thought that 
she, ripe with wisdom, observation, and experience 
that come through the ages, rich in sympathy that 
comes of a pure heart and the battles she fought to 
gain her high attainment, and exalted to the freedom 
and privilege of the universe, would greatly bless this 
world of his and ours with her instruction. Not that 
she was more wise, or even claimed greater wisdom 
than that with which our world is already blessed. 
This she disclaimed, and affirmed that she could add 
nothing to the existing divine communication, nor 
had she power to take any thing from it. But Or- 
phanos expected a freshness of idea, and an impress- 
iveness that would nevertheless greatly aid this world 
of ours in the paths of right progression. By the 
perfection of her nature she was liberated from un- 
holy ambition, and all vain spirit of rivalry; inspired 
with a godlike nature, she moved and administered 
with a feeling of universal charity. 

( 16 ) 


EJIVDIA. 


17 


Orphanos Almost Frightened. 

The early twilight had set in, and Orphanos awoke 
from his reverie almost frightened by the sounds he 
heard: a mingling of growls, hisses, murmurings, 
complaints., debates, frettings, dislikes, hates, jealous- 
ies, envyings — as it were a great bundle of all evils 
bound together, and they in life-like energy writhing 
and struggling for independent and separate liberty. 
Orphanos almost thought that the “works of the 
flesh” had assumed organic life, and were invading 
the beautiful grove where the fair Erudia had conde- 
scended to meet and instruct him in the paths of 
peace and happiness: “Adultery, fornication, unclean- 
ness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, vari- 
ance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, en- 
vyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such 
like.” Nor was he far mistaken; for immediately he 
beheld Erudia advancing down the grove path, as 
fair and as composed as on the former evening, but 
leading and half-way dragging, by a thong tied to the 
girdle of her waist, a most horrid-looking creature. 

The Description of the Creature. 

It had a body of disgusting shape, and, though seem- 
ingly full, was hungry. It had many feet, with long 
claws; but its legs w^ere too short to raise its body to 
its wanted desire. It had many tails, with stings on 
them that could not be satisfied; and heads and eyes 


18 


ERUDIA. 


all around its body. It had one head that was well 
disposed; but all the others were its enemies. It 
seemed built up to move in the direction which that 
head would suggest; but it was so dominated by the 
will and force of the others that this head was almost 
helpless, and much subdued. This head showed 
scars, as though it had endured an age of battle for 
authority and right dominion. The gait of the creat- 
ure was as .awkward as its body was uncomely. It 
appeared to be an abortion of any thing an intelligent 
designer could have intended. 

The heads were continually reaching out and strik- 
ing at every thing they thought could be reached. 
Many eyes sat in guard over the head of good inten- 
tion, and the least movement of it drew the others in 
threatening menace. It indeed looked pitiable; and 
even Erudia looked sorrowful when she glanced at 
its helpless condition. The tails were very restive; 
and the tongues were forked, and exhibited ever and 
anon electrically. The beast was continually raising 
and lowering itself on its feet, and seemed tremen- 
dously restless and unhappy because of the shortness 
of its legs. The eyes stood out from the heads, were 
fiery red, and lidless. Its color was dark like night, 
with no sign of brightness except in the head of good 
intention. It was indeed a creature more horrid and 
restless than imagination could conceive. Orphanos 
could not hear the speech of Erudia because of the 


ERUDIA. 


19 


mingled growls and noises it made. When she per- 
ceived this she gave the thong by which she led it a 
sudden jerk, whereupon the noise abated into a low 
moaning growd of many mouths. 

‘Orphanos, in wonder, said: “O Erudia, you have 
greatly surprised me, and almost frightened me away 
with this horrid beast you have brought along with 
you.’\ 

She smiled complacently, and said: “I certainly 
would regret my manner of instruction w^ere it not for 
the good I hope to do your race. Only be composed, 
and you may not regret the sight you now witness.” 

Orphanos. “What creature is this? Has it a name? 
Is it true that such a creature has ever been made? 
Has the Lord God ever done such a work as this? 
What object have you for introducing it in this grove 
of singing birds, of pleasant twilight and joyous 
shade; where evening meditations have softened my 
heart, and my soul has been enraptured with thoughts 
of God and his wonderful w’orks.” 

Erudia, “No, Orphanos; such a creature was never 
made — at least not as you now behold it. It is not 
good, as you see; and nothing was ever created that 
was not good. It has no name now; but once it had 
a beautiful name. It was such as it was worthy of 
when created, and before it, through violence to law, 
generated its present horrid form and hideous nature. 
It is known throughout the universe of the Lord God. 


20 


ERUDIA, 


It belongs to tlie invisible creation, and can be seen 
only by such a part of my own class of creation as 
have attained to great privilege, dignity, and honor, 
and to such as we see fit to manifest it. The rich- 
est language in the most intelligent worlds can- 
not now give it a fitting name. It is so full of sub- 
tlety and invention that the fitting name of to-day 
would oftentimes not apply on the morrow. There- 
fore its names are as numerous as its heads, eyes, 
claws, tails, and stings. Wherever virtue reigns 
among the worlds, the hardest epithets are applied to 
this beast. Its power is felt among the worlds, and 
intelligent beings in your own world as well as else- 
where are dominated by such an invisible creature, 
and are not aware of its horrid form and hideous nat- 
ure. Others are struggling for release, while others 
again have found release; and the liberty gained is 
such an approach toward created bliss that the joy 
felt is far more extensive than the power to tell.” 

Erudia Explains the Beast. 

“ Yes, Orphanos, I have one object in view by this 
manifestation. The beast which you see represents 
a corrupted heart of some intelligent moral agent, 
whether of your world, of your race, or any other. O 
think of your world! How sorely it is afflicted in 
heart! How the children cry, the poor suffer, and the 
widows moan, before pity is shown, relief brought, 


ERVDIA. 


21 


and comfort established! How slowly compassion 
rises and moderate the help compared with ability! 
Your world needs help. Your race needs to awake out 
of the sleep it has so long indulged. A race of such 
possibilities in the stupendous creation need hearts 
liberated from the power of the beast you have seen. 
Orphanos, what does your great book, given as a lamp 
to the feet, tell you of the human heart? Does it not 
show that the beast illustrates a corrupted human 
nature? Does not the life conduct of your race show 
that many are dominated by the beast?” 

Oryhanos. “Thou knowest, Erudia, all about it. 
You have experience and knowledge. The beast, I 
perceive, illustrates a great truth. It shows the de- 
pravity ill human nature of which man is so for- 
getful and the deep stains which he is loath to ac- 
knowledge. I shall never forget the lesson and a 
thousand thanks I owe to you. It seems that I shall 
always be thinking of corrupted human nature and 
how the horrid creature illustrates it. Yes, Erudia, 
there exists much wise teaching for our world. Our 
great book says: ‘And God saw that the wickedness 
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagi- 
nation of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 
continually.’ ‘The heart is deceitful above all 
things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?’ 
‘There is none righteous, no, not one: there is 
none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh 


22 


ERUDIA. 


after God. They are all gone out of the way, they 
are together become unprofitable; there is none that 
doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open 
sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; 
the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is 
full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to 
shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: 
and the way of peace have they not known; there is 
no fear of God before their eyes.’ 

“ Yes, Erudia, our great book says these things 
and much more which you know and which I need 
not repeat of corrupted human hearts, of depraved 
human nature. As much as I have thought, and as 
much as you have to say of the present improvement 
of my race contrasted with their possibilities, yet 
such is man who has no fear of God before his eyes.” 

Man an Enigma to Good Angels. 

Erudia. “You have well spoken, Orphanos, and 
have strikingly presented the great truth taught in 
your book. Your race must not only know, but be 
impressed, deeply impressed; for your creation are 
peculiar among the worlds that have been tried. In- 
deed, your world is a moral phenomenon, an enigma 
to the good angels. They wonder that your race are 
so slow to believe, so loath to reform, so stubborn and 
resisting. It is an enigma to them how your world 
can acknowledge so much for good and final happi- 


ERUDIA. 


23 


ness, and yet neglect and resist the practical princi- 
ple. It shows the domination over the otherwise good 
principle and fair character in the heart of your 
race. 

The Head of Good Intentions. 

Orphanos, would you not like to see that subdued 
head of the beast rise up in authority and dominion 
over the others ? If you had power, would you not per- 
form the miracle ’? I know that you would. That head 
of good intention ought to rise, yet those scars should 
remain. They tell a noble history. How soon would 
such a king and such dominion subdue all the rest: 
end these growls and stop that hissing, extract those 
stings and stop those strikings and snappings, take 
the fiery redness out of the eyes- and hide away that 
frightfully electrical tongue, quiet those restless tails 
and change the horrid thing to comeliness! It would 
start not with awkward gait as now, but with more 
natural pace on the road toward what it was by 
creation and what it must attain to be contented and 
happy. 

“ Orphanos, would you not like to see human nat- 
ure, degraded into such an abortion, raise its crushed 
head and dominate all the evil passions of man? I 
know you would. What a world of happiness you 
w'ould then have! the race of man raised to their 
normal condition. Your race are unhappy, restless, 
in unnecessary wretchedness and woe. They can re- 


24 


ERUDIA. 


lieve themselves of much if they will. Yet they claim 
to be good. They know not what they are, nor do 
they see or even think of the deep stains that often- 
times lie at the door of the pious. Another must tell 
and not yourself, for they would call you a crank or a 
fool. 

*‘How many are they who do not bear malice; or 
if not, do hate; or if not, do envy or in some sense 
more fully or otherwise exhibit the character and 
form of that horrid beast? The more of that charac- 
ter they possess the more they would be disposed to 
call you a crank or a fool. But all men by grace 
given may rise above that horrid form and character, 
and raise the scarred and bruised head of good inten- 
tion into righteous dominion, and do in practical life 
that which is right; may not only remember the truth, 
but practice the golden rule: ‘All things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you do ye even so to 
them.’ This is verily the rule of the universe. It be- 
longs to all worlds, to all forms of intelligence whose 
moral worth is tried. It is more than a fleshly com- 
mandment: it is a spiritual law. It cannot be well 
practiced as long as the scarred, bruised head of good 
intentions is dominated by the stinging tails, electric- 
al tongues, and forces of angry will that make up the 
nature and character of the beast. A fleshly com- 
mandment cannot subdue deceit, malice, hate, envy, 
nor open the eyes upon human wants, institute love, 


ERUDTA. 


25 


nor open the portals of compassion, nor raise the 
^ gates of self-denial, sacrifice, and charity. What a 
world of enjoyment would be yours if this universal 
rule should be practiced! 

“ Orphanos, look upon the beast. How resistful of 
such a law! Even my presence and my authority do 
not entirely hold in check its evil nature. The growl- 
ing is only sufficiently subdued for you to hear my 
speech. Should it be released from all authority, it 
would tear and damage your world with all its abil- 
ity. The bruised head would finally be altogether 
powerless and lost. Such is the nature of your race. 
With every human nature there is a head of good in- 
tention with which the start is made. Children do 
not love blood, and have more compassion than men; 
but when their eyes grow accustomed to human want, 
and their heads become intoxicated with gain, and in 
the pride of life they meet with flatteries, they grow 
to be as other men. They are taught by example; 
they grow harder in heart and can hear the cries of 
the poor around them without being moved with com- 
passion. The fountain of the better nature becomes 
more dried, the head of good intention more domi- 
nated and subdued, and the beast nature a leading 
life. 

“ But it is growing late, Orphanos. Your world can- 
not be greatly helped and a spirit of right progres- 
sion aroused until its eyes are opened; not that it has 


26 


ERUDIA, 


no eyes open, for it has certain eyes open, and they 
are very wide. But it has others closed, and they are 
the best for happiness, the happiness of the whole. 
The eyes of self-laudation and personal gain are wide, 
painfully wide; but the eyes that see your world as 
it is are shut, or if not, very meagerly open. Your 
world must be seen as it is, must be seen by the mem- 
bers of your race, not by one here and there, one in 
many thousand as is now the case, but by the many. 
“ The real condition of your race must be realized. 
This vision and this knowledge lie at the threshold 
of a better beginning and in the line of a fairer pro- 
gression. It will lay the foundation for that general 
progression that will bring happiness and comfort 
everywhere. 

“ Now, Orphanos, I have illustrated to you the char- 
acter and heart of your race. Of course there are ex- 
ceptions. But the exceptions are so scarce as com- 
pared with the many that the battle for the pious 
principles of the universe are feebly felt. Your crea- 
tion must be impressed, deeply impressed. They 
must leave off other business enough to travel the 
walks and scrutinize the recesses of the human heart. 
Then the foundation will be sur-e and right progres- 
sion certain. Adieu until the morrow'^ 


CHAPTER III. 


Q^HEN even-tide came and Orplianos entered tlie 
grove he felt ashamed and reproached himself 
because he saw that Erudia had already come and was 
pleasantly seated. Near by was a vacant chair which 
she asked him to occupy. She said : “ The future of 
your world is beautiful if your race will be taught. 
They must know the human heart, realize their con- 
dition, and open their eyes upon human want. The 
basis of all fair improvement and right progression 
among the intelligences of any creation is knowledge 
of themselves. Every intelligent life affords a spe- 
cimen of its own logic. The premises are in the ac- 
tions, the deduction in the result. Every life is an 
argument for something, an argument for good or 
evil. Life is a success or failure accordingly as it is 
lived. Nothing lays a better foundation for improve- 
ment, success, and usefulness than self-knowledge, a 
full acquaintance with one’s own heart and nature.” 

These words of Erudia made Orphanos believe 
that she was going to continue the lesson of the for- 
mer evening; nor was he unwilling that she should, for 
he became very anxious to become fully acquainted 
with man’s nature and heart. But there was a sud- 

( 27 ) 


28 


ERVDIA. 


den interruption. ' For while Erudia seemed not to 
have finished her lesson on human nature and the hu- 
man heart a scrambling and low but dreadful noise 
was heard hidden away in the boughs of the trees 
over their heads. Erudia still had the thong fast- 
ened to the belt around her waist, though up to this 
time Orphanos had not noticed it. The thong ex- 
tended up the tree against which Erudia was sitting 
into the thick boughs, and with it the scrambling, 
hideous, noisy creature was tied. Erudia pulled the 
thong, and down came the repulsive, loathsome mon- 
ster near to the feet of Orphanos. He uttered a cry 
of fear and began to flee away. 

Erudia called aloud: “ Come back, Orphanos! come 
back! There is no danger. I am here, and I have 
power over the beast. He belongs to the invisible 
creation, yet as many of my class as have graduated 
unto honor, dignity of character, and great privi- 
leges can manifest him at pleasure in our lessons 
of instruction and in our efforts to assist in raising 
the fallen worlds. This creature is far from his 
former self. What you see is one of his transfor- 
mations. He is degraded beyond the power of all 
instruction. He has receded in moral degradation 
beyond all resources which restore things back to 
original piety and virtue. I know nothing otherwise 
than that he shall remain as he is, only perhaps more 
limited in his dominion, territory, and authority 


ERUDIA. 


29 


through the limitless ages. He belongs to a class of 
creaced intelligences, but they are not all as he. 
Some have gone above their created conditions as far 
as he has sunk beneath them. O Ophanos, it is fort- 
unate for your world that the crimes of your race 
have not reduced you to such degradation and ruin. 
Your world has hope; this creature has none. Your 
world has the tragedy of the cross and the fruition 
that springs from faith. If the cross and the riches 
of grace through it these thousands of years have so 
m eagerly helped your race up to the present time, 
what effect could any such sacrifice^ and a display of 
such resources have upon such a ruined intelligence 
as this? ” 

Orphanos cried out: “None, none, O Erudia, none! 
for I perceive that there is a limit to the riches of 
grace and an end of resources. A created intelli- 
gence may lose in the disgrace of crime the power 
to perceive, and be accursed forever.” Orphanos be- 
came silent, and looked anxiously on the beast. Eru- 
dia saw how anxiously he gazed upon it, and for a 
moment said nothing. 

A Desckiption of the Monster. 

He was serpent- shaped with flanged sides. The 
sides extended far out when he made motions to 
move. They were like unto wings when he moved 
rapidly, and seemed scarcely to touch the earth. He 


30 


FAIUDIA. 


had a wonderful power for making himself large or 
small. He could occupy a whole space or diminish 
so as to be able to crawl into the smallest recesses. 
He seemed not conscious of the presence of Erudia 
and Orphanos; at least, there were no signs or tokens 
that he did. He observed all things else, and dili- 
gently searched into all places where he had liber- 
ty. Wherever he went every thing became polluted. 
Even the green things when contaminated by his 
touch immediately gave out signs of decay. All 
about, here and there, where the beast moved, there 
were circles over which he could not pass. He 
seemed greatly troubled on account of these, and 
much perplexed because he did not have power over 
the whole territory. Among some of the circles he 
could move at full size; again he would diminish his 
size in order to move among others. He would some- 
times stop, raise himself, and look over into a circle 
with great anxiety and lick his tongue over his upper 
lip, like a dog anxious for and expecting a bone. 
One circle disappeared. He seemed much pleased, 
extended his form, occupied the space fully, and made 
a sound as if to comfort. At one time in the direc- 
tion he was moving a new circle appeared; at this he 
raised himself and roared with rage. Now and then 
messengers of similar form to himself would come 
and go. To these he gave much attention. They 
honored him as a chieftain or king. They appeared 


EIWDIA. 


31 


like the couriers of a general in battle. Some were 
detained but little, others longer. Some he dismissed 
in other directions than they came. He received 
some with great complacency and pleasure. Others 
excited him very much. At one time several came 
together and danced for joy, and he joined them in 
the frolic. 

Ophanos w^as astonished and could not speakt It 
was a dreadful hour, and he would not have been able 
to endure it, only for confidence in protection from 
Erudia. She saw the reverie into which he had been 
caught, and took him by the hand to awake him out 
of his mixed fear and wonder. She said: “O Or- 
phanos, this is the great enemy of your world in one 
of his transformations. He is particularly attached 
to your world, and holds conquered much of its terri- 
tory. You seemed to be alarmed, yet thousands of 
your race give him entertainments without fear, and, 
may I not add, unconscious of his presence and there- 
fore without discernment. Your world must drive 
him out in order to be happy and good. Your world 
cannot be filled with righteousness as long as it gives 
such a creature entertainments, and does his bidding. 
It is not surprising that he has this character since 
he is degraded beyond all hope. Orphanos, what 
does your book say of this great enemy ? That book 
is your guide. If your race distrust it, your world is 
ruined without remedy. If your creation wink at 


32 


ERUDTA. 


the revelation of this great adversary or lightly con- 
strue the fact of his real existence, the foundation is 
laid for broader infidelity. O Orphanos, tell me 
what your book says of this enemy of all good, this 
anxious, active foe of your race.” 

Orphanos replied: “Thou kuowest it well, Erudia. 
To tell it all would consume a time too long. You 
want, as I presume, from our great book, enough to 
show this great enemy’s character and his connection 
with our world. He assaulted our great King, who 
came to bless our world and to raise it up to God. This 
is the way the story of the battle is told: ‘And when 
the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son 
of God, command that these stones be made bread. 
But he answered and said. It is written, Man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
ceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil 
taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on 
a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him. If thou 
be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is Avrit- 
ten. He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: 
and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any 
time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said 
unto him. It is written again. Thou shalt not tempt 
the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him up 
into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him 
all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 
and saith unto him. All these things will I give thee. 


ERVDIA. 


33 


if tlioa wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith 
Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is writ- 
ten, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him 
only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, 
and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.’” 

“ Orphanos,” said Erudia, “ that is beautiful. Some 
of my own race witnessed that battle, and certain cre- 
ations of other worlds, besides the mighty host of an- 
gels that came and ministered unto him. It is re- 
corded in many books of the universe. Your book 
gives only an epitomized statement. Certain others 
in other worlds give the battle in detail. The history 
as they report it thrills their hearts and inspires love 
and admiration of the hero. Your king was attacked 
when faint and alone, and at the weakest lacing of 
his armor. The fight he made and the victory he 
won were nobler for that. Though your little world 
knew it not, there was great rustling in many worlds, 
and captains gave orders that heads be bared in hon- 
or of the day. 

“ Orphanos, your race have an illustrious example 
in the trial of your King. He showed you how to 
fight your great foe, and has given grace to conquer. 
Many heroes of your race have followed him. The 
history of some of these has been written by the 
scribes of your world, though in an imperfect way, 
and there is need of many additions, but perhaps of 
more erasures. The scribes of your world have nev- 
3 


34 


ERUDIA, 


er noticed some of your best and noblest heroes. 
They are lost in your history because they belonged 
to the humbler walks of life. The heads of your 
scribes have been too high to notice such a stature. 
Their inner and true history and their heroic battle 
are better known in other realms than to your world. 
Yet the full record is made, for other scribes than 
those who belong to your world have recorded the 
truth without discrimination. But tell me, Orphan- 
os, something more of this great enemy of the Lord 
God, and dreadful foe of your world.” 

Orplianos. “ ‘And the seventy returned again with 
joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us 
through thy name. And he said unto them, I be- 
held Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” “And 
no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an 
angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his 
ministers also be transformed as the ministers of 
righteousness.” “And they had a king over them, 
which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name 
in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek 
tongue hath his name Apollyon.” “And the Lord 
said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan 
answered the Lord, and said. From going to and fro 
in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” 
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan 
hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as 
wheat.” “But when they have heard, Satan cometh 


ERUDIA. 


35 


immediately, and taketh away the word that was 
sown in their hearts.” 

“ O Erndia,” continued Orphanos, “ it is too much 
to tell it all. Our great foe is as bad as the form is 
horrid and ugly under which you have represented 
him. This unseen enemy of all good greatly afflicts 
our world. He goes to and fro in the earth and 
walks up and down in it to catch away good doctrine 
and hold in check right progression; and uses many 
wiles by his transformations. He is a powerful and 
arbitrary king, and has his wicked host perfectly or- 
ganized.” 

Erudia smiled approvingly that Orphanos should 
assume to descant on the nature and character of the 
fearful enemy of his race. “Yes,” said she, “your 
collations from your book are good; but your race 
are very unfortunate in one of his devices. He has 
almost persuaded them that he is a mere myth, and 
that he is no part of the great creation. He has 
made even some of your otherwise good teachers 
believe the lie. This fearful error builds a rampart 
against right progression. Eliminate from the 
thoughts of your race this dreadful enemy of good, 
and your world will rise slowly in the moral man- 
liood becoming your world. It will make many 
stages of false experiences and repeat them over and 
over again, and perhaps a thousand years will pass 
and find a generation in moral development scarcely 


36 


ERUDIA. 


past the line of their ancient fathers. While the ex- 
istence of this great enemy of all moral reformation 
is a truth, the knowledge of it is necessary to set your 
race in order and enable them to steer life through 
steadily in the paths of right progression. 

“ Orphanos, I wonder you did not go farther back 
in the collations from your book, even into the early 
history of your race. Hear this: ‘Now the serpent 
was more subtile than any beast of the field which 
the Lord God had made.’ Orphanos, that serpent 
was not one of the beasts of the field. He was the 
dragon that once fought against Michael. No beast 
of the field would have attempted the ruin of your 
ancient sire. They had not the intelligence, neither 
was any more wdse than he. There was no beast of 
the field that could tempt him or his loved companion 
into disobedience. It was a transformation of your 
great enemy allowed of the Lord God, an invention, 
a practice of one of his wiles to deceive. The purity 
of your sire’s heart forbade damage to his nature 
through vicious thoughts or any wicked volition ris- 
ing from within. A clean fountain can send forth 
only clean waters. It is an enemy that turns an 
impure subterranean stream into such a fountain. 
Damage of nature and ruin of soul had necessarily 
to come from some extraneous source; at least it is 
true so far as your race is concerned. Your world 
had to prove itself. Hence the Lord God gave Satan 


ERUDIA. 


37 


access to your world f nd suffered him to tempt it. 
The worlds have their respective enemies allowed of 
the Lord God.” 

‘‘But, Erudia,” said Orphanos, “there is much 
mystery attached to the transformation that you ex- 
hibited to me. I noticed circles here and there which 
Satan had no power to enter, and which grieved him 
very much; and sometimes a circle vanished, and 
sometimes a new circle would appear.” 

Erudia. “The circles which you observed, and 
which looked brighter than the other ground, repre- 
sent the good and virtuous of your world. When a 
new circle was formed it indicated that one or a num- 
ber of your race had deserted the dark king, and had 
sworn allegiance to the Lord God. When a circle dis- 
appeared it indicated that some one or a number of 
your race had lost their shields, and no longer had 
heart to use their swords; were captured, and made 
to do duty for the dark king. 

“Orphanos, you noticed messengers coming and 
going. This great enemy of all good is not omni- 
present. No such creature can ever be made. It is 
against the nature of the Lord God to do such work. 
But it is wonderful how well posted in the affairs and 
moral standing of your world this enemy is. The 
rapidity of his messengers far surpass the electrical 
currents of your world. They move like your thoughts 
and your dreams. The multitude of these messen- 


38 


ERUDf^. 


gers has never been reckoned. Your world is sup- 
plied with many more than it has people. They are 
always doing battle against you; and your world, left 
alone and unsupplied with grace, could never rise and 
show the hidden excellency of your race. 

“ Many a time they have exulted and danced, as you 
saw, Avhen several of his messengers came together. 
Your world has afforded maliy an example of such 
jubilation. When, according to your book, Paul was 
making his defense before King Agrippa, a whole 
camp of them, appropriated to your world, was in a 
stir, and were much confused. Agrippa came very 
near being a Christian. Had he been fully persuaded 
in that early day, it would have brought great disas- 
ter to Satan. But when he and his messengers per- 
suaded Agrippa that he was turning to the weak and 
unpopular side; that he was taking his office and his 
life into his own hands because of the hate of the 
Jews, they restrained him from acting upon the truth 
he had heard; and, as soon as Paul was dismissed, 
they took away the seeds that had been sown in the 
heart of Agrippa. Kapidly the news was borne, and 
in many of their camps there was great jubilation. 

“ Orphanos, I repeat that the line of progress your 
world is traveling tends to carry it out of the belief 
that such a foe as Satan exists, and that therefore no 
such spirit has any connection and power with your 
race. This is all he desires of your world. Yet he 


EliUDIA. 


39 


is not careful of personal honor's. The battle he 
makes comes more of envy than for the sake of per- 
sonal aggrandizement. He is willing to be unrecog- 
nized and unknown, if only his purpose may be ac- 
complished. In some parts of the world he has be- 
come comparatively quiet, the people having adopted 
lines and modes of life congenial to his nature. In an 
unseen but powerfully effective way he lends his co- 
operation. The line of skeptical civilization which 
your world is traveling has his approval. 

“ Orphanos, the star that controls my time with 
you to-night has reached its meridian. I only repeat 
that your world must know itself and the powers and 
influences against which it must do battle, before it 
can steadfastly hold on to the line of right progres- 
sion, and bring your race to the true plane of its pos- 
sibility. Then there will be peace and happiness 
everywhere. Think on these things. Adieu.'' 


CHHPTeR IV. 


(i (CI^UDIA certainly has a well-ordered life,” solil- 
^ oquized Orphanos, as he slowly and meditative- 
ly walked the path through his garden homeward. 
“She seems to appropriate her time under the move- 
ment of the stars. These are her dial-glasses, and 
these again are worlds, and in them she feels a great in- 
terest. I wonder how many, in her long life of purity 
and independent duty, she has visited and assisted in 
moral welfare. ‘ Orphanos, the star that controls my 
time with you has reached its meridian.’ What star? 
The star whither she has taken her flight on her mis- 
sion of charity and instruction? ” 

“ Think on these tilings! ” Orphanos did think on 
them — he thought on them until he fell into the deep 
slumbers of the night. He awoke refreshed; but 
wonderingly through the day thought over the lessons 
of Erudia. In his thoughts he became deeply im- 
pressed of the wonders of the universe, and especially 
of the missionary work of Erudia; and his heart be- 
came thrilled in the hope that she would prove, a 
great blessing to his own race. “Ah!” thought he, 
“ the people of this world, like any other, must know 

themselves — their weakness, their great enemy — or 
( 40 ) 


ERUDIA. 


41 


else they may fall in a thousand attempts to rise. 
They may repeat the failures of their fathers again and 
again. But never until they recognize the dark king, 
the great enemy of this world — his transformations, 
his wiles, his deceit, his lies, his actual presence, the 
evils he has introduced into this world, the effort he 
is making to maintain his authority and government 
— will the line of that civilization that will effect gen- 
eral peace and happiness be pursued.” 

Erudia and Orphanos met at the chairs prepared 
at precisely the same time. She smiled in silence as 
he looked anxiously about, not knowing whether or 
not to be alarmed, but suspecting something dreadful 
would be seen. But when he saw no thong attached 
to the girdle which Erudia wore he became composed, 
and sat down upon the vacant chair. Then Erudia, 
in musical but rather solemn voice, said: 

“Orphanos, the progression of your world is fast 
, bringing your race to believe that there is no hell of 
‘endless duration. This skepticism in regard to a 
great truth is exceedingly damaging to the interests 
of your world. The dark king, who is always in un- 
rest, and who dwells in the dark places of the uni- 
verse, is now working powerfully to build up this 
rampart against right progression. He has built a 
most beautiful and enticing switch from the right 
road. Should the skepticism prevail, the deeply 
planted animalism in the nature of your race will in- 


42 


ERUDIA. 


evitably lead them to indulge a libertinism as bound- 
less as the sky, a libertinism accompanied with the^ 
whole catalogue of concomitant vices. 

“ Your world cannot rise to general peace and hap- 
piness under such a condition. It is against the nat- 
ure of your race to love the Lord God in their sins. 
Such is their nature that they are a thousand-fold 
more disposed to make an escape in their own inter- 
est than to be attracted by a character or a king, how- 
ever lovely. To preach that the Lord God is all ten- 
derness and love, or that he hates sin, but will not 
punish, or that he will give the incorrigible of your 
world another probation, is not sufficient to arouse 
your race to proper religious activity. The truth, the 
whole truth must be declared, as awfully terrible as 
it may appear, that there is a future ever-enduring 
punishment for the incorrigible and persistently 
wicked of your world; that the present probation was 
purchased with the richest price of the universe; that 
another probation would demand a greater price; but 
there is none greater to give. 

“ Such was the foundation of your world under the 
divine law that one act of disobedience, seemingly a 
very little sin, demanded the life of the culprit. 
While it is impracticable, and would even depopulate 
your world to make such a demand in the common- 
wealths of your race, yet the life is always demanded 
under the divine institution for every disobedience. 


ERIWIA. 


43 


When probation is ended, unless "the conditions are 
met before death, it is the life, the life. If the life 
never dies, the punishment must unrelentingly con- 
tinue. Orphanos, your book is authority for your 
race. What does it say? ” 

Orphanos. “ ‘ Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, 
that leadeth to destruction, and many there be whicli 
go in thereat.’ ‘Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, 
nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of them- 
selves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor 
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall in- 
herit the kingdom of God.’ ‘Adultery, fornication, 
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, ha- 
tred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, 
heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, 
and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I 
have also told you in time past, that they which do 
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’ 
‘The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the 
nations that forget God.’ ‘Every tree that bringeth 
not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the 
fire.’ ‘In hell the rich man lifted up his eyes, being 
in torments.’ ‘He that despised Moses’ law died 
without mercy: ... of how much sorer punishment, 
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath 
trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath count- 
ed the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanc- 
tified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto 


44 


EBUDIA, 


the Spirit of grace.’ ‘He spared not the angels that 
sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered 
them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto 
judgment.’ ‘ The* fearful, and unbelieving, and the 
abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and 
sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their 
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brim- 
stone: which is the second death.’ ‘Depart from 
me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
devil and his angels.’ ‘And these shall go away 
into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into 
life eternal.’ ” 

The countenance of Erudia shone with exceeding 
brightness as Orphanos repeated: “ But the righteous 
into life eternal.” Her thoughts seemed to be on the 
final triumph, the ultimate victory of the world; that 
her labors would perhaps not be vain with this world, 
and that some time in the far off future she would see 
many of the sons and daughters of Adam’s posterity 
enjoying “ eternal life,” gained through her ministry, 
and she could rejoice with them. With serene look, 
quietly and plaintively she repeated: “ But the right- 
eous into life eternal.” After a short silence, as if in 
meditation, she said: 

“ How dreadful, Orphanos, are some of the enunci- 
ations of your great book! What is the matter with 
your race that they manifest so little interest about 
its divine instruction; so little concern to escape im- 


ERVDIA. 


45 


pending, threatening, and awful ruin ? But why do 
I askV Is not human nature encompassed with much 
embarrassment? Is not a pure life a hard battle? 
Orphanos, an age is on your world now that greatly 
divides and perplexes the mind and troubles the 
heart; the variety of things to be known, the compe- 
tition of things demanding attention, and the anxiety 
to keep up with the times give poor opportunity for 
sober thought. Such is the hurried condition of your 
world now, and such the embarrassments of your race 
that they take but little time to consider whether or 
not there be an awful, dreadful hell. In the midst 
of business cares and anxiety they take but little time 
to consider the great fact as taught in the book given 
to bless your world. 

“ Teachers and public lecturers are numerous who, 
knowing little of your book and less of the nature 
and character of the Lord God, have set themselves 
to reform your religion unto its destruction. They 
are muzzling the mouths of many of your best teach- 
ers. Such is the progression your world is now mak- 
ing, and such the status of its present movement. 

“ It is not the office of your race any more than of 
my own to inquire why there is future punishment 
for the incorrigibly wicked of all worlds and grades 
of creation. The uncreated Lord God has a certain 
nature and character. He is what he is, even what 
he has revealed himself to your world. He shows 


ERUDIA. 


what he is not only in the lines of your great book, 
but also by the condition of things in your world, 
and which, when you open your eyes, you behold. 
It all shows his nature and character. He never has, 
never will, cannot change his nature and character. 
To do so would make him unworthy, would imply 
his possible personal destruction, and leave the uni- 
verse, deserted of mind and a controlling will, to run 
lawless into chaotic disorder. He has created, and 
by unchanging the nature with which he began, is 
able to uphold. The things that exist are consistent 
with his nature. If they are not w^hat they were by 
creation, they are what they have made themselves to 
be. Whatever undertakes to amend the nature and 
character the Lord God has given it is not wise. In 
the history of the worlds he lets such take care of 
themselves; or else, under a law of his nature, as is 
illustrated in his love for your world, for a time sub- 
mit terms by which they may become wise and good. 

“ But the unreformed, the indifferent, the unbeliev- 
ing, the persistently incorrible then all go to one 
place, where it is night because there is no day; 
where there is disorder and confusion, because there 
is no intelligent law; where there is shame and dis- 
grace, because there is no spirit to improve; where 
there is memory of lost opportunities ; where there is 
wretchedness and loathing desire under the inevita- 
ble and eternal fate. It is thus on the ground that 


ERUDIA. 


47 


it is the nature and character of the uncreated Lord 
God, and there can be no appeal. O Orphanos, it is 
as reasonable as that your world should be in its 
present condition of want, suffering, and death. Your 
book has revealed to you all that is necessary to meet 
the moral exigences arising in the history of your 
race. 

“Your world, through inventions sought out, 
through disobedience and crime, now swings mid- 
way between such a place and the possible order, 
peace, righteousness, and happiness lying out before 
you. Your world has light and darkness, order and 
confusion, intelligent law and dark counsel, honor 
and shame, virtue and vice, life and death, the Lord 
God and the devil. What shades! what contrasts! 
what contradictions! Your world is a wing in the 
great battle now going on in the universe. 

“Your world gravitates under the battle in which 
it is engaged according to the spirit of the progress 
with which it is seized, sometimes upw^ard toward 
light and order, sometimes downward toward dark- 
ness and confusion. It will be thus until man is 
done with his own inventions of improvement, or 
rather perhaps until he bases them upon the doc- 
trines of your great book. It will be thus until self- 
laudation gives place to a spirit that will magnify 
and give ail praise to the Lord God. 

“ Your world will ultimately triumph, but no creat- 


43 


ERUDIA. 


ure beneath or above can tell when it will be. The 
fickleness of your race, their present distrust of your 
book, their taste for experiment and fondness of in- 
vention, their thirst for applause, the semi-infidelity 
of many of their moral teachers, and the stubborn, 
unrelenting nature of your great enemy shut the 
time from the wisest intelligences. But ultimate 
triumph is certain. Many a hero has gone upward 
to the light scarred in the fight, but the more hon- 
ored by the battle he had made. Many have gone 
down in disgrace to darkness for having joined and 
fought with the enemy. 

Erudia Discourses on Hades. 

“Orphanos, there is a place for the spirits of the 
dead of your race that is neither hell nor heaven. 
Yet it is a place of both happiness and misery; but 
there are two multitudes of people, and they are not 
mixed. It is hades. That place intervenes between 
your world and the final rest which is heaven, and 
between your world and great darkness which is hell. 
The disembodied spirits of this place are happy and 
miserable. Their condition depends upon the man- 
ner of life they lived in your world. Even as your 
world illustrates in some degree a midway connection 
of heaven and hell, this place the more so shows the 
meeting of heaven and hell. The one part is the 
heaven of disembodied spirits, the other the hell; but 


ERUDIA, 


49 


not the heaven of the embodied after the judgment 
of your world, nor the hell. 

“In the quotations from your book you rehearsed: 
‘In hell the rich man lifted up his eyes, being in 
torments.’ Orphanos, will you do me the kindness to 
quote the history of that man, so far as your book 
treats of him ? ” 

The Eich Man and Lazarus. 

Orphanos. “ ‘ There was a certain rich man, which 
was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sump- 
tuously every day: and there was a certain beggar 
named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of 
sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which 
fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs 
came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that 
the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into 
Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was 
buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in 
torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus 
in his bosom. And he cried and said. Father Abra- 
ham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he 
may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my 
tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abra- 
ham said. Son, remember that thou in thy life-time 
receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil 
things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tor- 
mented. And besides all this, between us and you 
4 


50 


ERUDIA. 


there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would 
pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass 
to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, 
I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send 
him to my father’s house: for I have five brethren; 
that he may testify unto them, lest they also come 
into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, 
They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear 
them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if 
one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. 
And he said unto him. If they hear not Moses and 
the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though 
one rose from the dead.’ ” 

“Ah! Orphanos,” said Erudia, “in that history is 
seen the hell and paradise of hades. Lazarus was in 
hades, but with Abraham in paradise awaiting the 
judgment of your world. The rich man was in hades, 
but in torments awaiting judgment. Between them 
was an impassable gulf, but across it mystic vision. 

“ This rich man had been kind to Lazarus, ground- 
ing his hope in works without faith and humility. 
In his extremity he demanded a return of favors. 
He thought the honor and manhood of Lazarus 
would be awakened, and that he would willingly 
perform any service in his behalf under orders from 
Abraham. He trusted in the honor of Lazarus be- 
yond all he saw in the happy end of hades. 

“ Lazarus, having but recently arrived in paradise, 


ERIJBIA. 


51 


was happy but inexperienced. He heard the call of 
his old friend who was once rich but now poor, was 
once happy in wealth but now tormented with want 
and thirst. He looked anxiously into the face of 
Abraham, but resigned himself to the eternal will 
when he learned that the gulf was impassable. 

“ The rich man did not yet understand human nat- 
ure. He looked upon your book as imperfect, and 
thought that something more was needed to awake 
your race to thoughtful activity, repentance, faith, 
and humility. Hence his solicitude for his five 
brethren, and his thought that one raised from the 
dead would have more influence than Moses and the 
prophets. 

“His mistake, though committed long ago and 
clinging to him in two worlds, is the mistake of your 
race to-day. It is the work of the great enemy of all 
good. He cultivated the heresy in the thoughts of 
the rich man while he lived in your world, stole away 
many good seeds from his heart, and even cultivated 
in him a faint hope in the infernal end of hades. 
But when hope was lost and despair seized his 
thoughts, he cursed his fate, and in the full measure 
of his strength became an enemy of the Lord God. 

“Orphanos, your world is fast entering out on a 
line of progression based too much on misconceptions 
of the nature and character of the Lord God. His 
nature is not what a man or even an angel may con- 


52 


EJIUDIA. 


ceive it to be, but that which he reveals it to be both 
in the volume of your book and in the things which 
you behold. The condition of your world is, under 
sober thought, a rebuke to what a man oftentimes 
conceives to be the nature and character of the Lord 
God. If he were in nature and character what a man 
oftentimes, and even an angel sometimes, conceives 
him to be, your world would not be swinging out to- 
day a great battle ground midway between heaven 
and hell. Behold the want and beggary of your 
world: the hard-toiling millions and the poor sus- 
tenance derived; the waste and ruin that appetite, pas- 
sion, and avarice have wrought; the oppressions of 
tariff and revenue, and desolations of war; the de- 
formed and the maimed in eye and limb; the feebly 
constituted, and diseased in mind and body; the un- 
equal capacity for earning bread; unhappy hearth- 
stones; the struggle to live at all; old age and its 
evils; the darkening of the windows, and the fear of 
that which is high; widowhood, sighs, tears, orphan- 
age, sorrow, grief; the bleeding and the dying every- 
where. O Orphanos, this is only a part of the picture 
of your world, and yet your world is but a small page 
in the great book of it in the universe. 

“The Lord God had a nature and character that 
suffer these things so to be. He is not all mercy, or 
it would never have been thus. He is just as well as 
merciful. If he has a nature that suffers such condi- 


ERUDIA. 


53 


tions, the same nature has led him to provide an aw- 
ful hell for the worthless and wicked of his creation. 
His creatures are tried, tried sufficiently and rightly 
under judgment and the law of his nature. When 
they pass their day of grace unimproved they are cast 
ofi* into darkness eternally to be under laws unto them- 
selves never to be reached by divine illumination. 
Therefore they will be unhappy and wretched; for 
no world from which the Lord God has withdrawn 
his personal influence and co-operation can have right 
progression and happiness. They chose to live with- 
out him, and hisr nature allows them to reap eternally 
the whirlwind of their choice. 

“ One place is prepared for the fallen and incorri- 
gible of all worlds. The devil and his angels occu- 
pied it first, and held it under their domination. They 
are the most powerful that have ever entered that 
domain, and the only class that are suffered ever to 
leave it. It was originally prepared for them, and to 
it they were assigned. They were the first upon the 
dark territory where shines no gleaming light from 
heaven nor from the worlds improved. In this dark 
region rule the dark spirits that struggle to put out 
the moral light of the universe. O Orphanos, how 
sad that, in view of the danger, your race are so in- 
difierent about their interests that lie just over the 
river! How little of Christian duty they perform! 
how little sacrifice they make! But such is the pres- 


54 


ERUDIA. 


ent condition of your world, such the depravity into 
which it is sunken, such the warfare of your dark en- 
emy.” 

Erudia became silent, and looked wonderingly 
about. Orphanos scarcely knew whetlier to speak or 
what to say. At last he broke the silence slowly and 
plaintively as follows: “ Erudia, will many of my race 
be lost forever in that awful darkness of which you 
speak, and concerning which our book treats?” 

Erudia. ‘^Orphanos, you have a book that points 
your race to the eternal city. The spires are seen in 
the far distance through faith and good works by all 
the soldiers of your world in Christian armor. All 
who die in battle traveling toward it will reach the city.” 

Orphanos. “ But, Erudia, there are millions of oth- 
ers. What of them ? ” 

Erudia. “Orphanos, you have a book that points 
your race to the eternal city. Its spires are seen in 
the far distance, through faith and good works, by all 
the soldiers of your world in Christian armor. All 
who die in battle traveling toward it will reach the city.” 

The last words were heard by Orphanos as from 
the lips of one receding, and on looking up he saw 
she was no longer present. He saw she was inclined 
to look on the bright side of the universe, and yet lie 
knew the logic of the statements which she twice re- 
peated to him: Christianity is positive, and wins; 
all else is negative, and loses — is lost. 


CHAPTER V. 


^BPHANOS was early in the grove, and continu- 
^ ally looked for Erndia. It grew later than usual, 
and she came not. He began to feel the solitude of 
approaching darkness that creeps over man when 
expectation has failed. He began to walk about, 
and indulged the following soliloquy: “What has 
become of Erndia, the fairest one of the mighty cre- 
ation? What have I done, what have I thought, 
that without notice she fails to come again and fur- 
ther instruct? Is she sick? No; that form is never 
sick. She will come; yes, she will come yet again 
and again. Her mission is beautiful, and her work 
will hasten the beauty and happiness of this world. 
May we not hope it will cut short many generations 
of want and suffering! Her time is controlled by the 
movment of a star. It is not Erudia; it is but the 
star that has delayed.” 

Orphanos looked up, and lo! he saw Erudia in the 
grove. 

“ Orphanos,” said Erudia, “ you appear restless this 
evening. You shall have ample notice before I have 
finished my instruction and quit your world, and 
add another to my field of labors. On my way the 

( 55 ) 


56 


ERUDIA. 


star under which I move suddenly stood still, and of 
course I with it. It was while passing another world. 
I looked, and saw one lone, poor creature, with bright 
eyes but heavy heart. He was seeking the purest 
light that had been given to bless his race. He knew 
not of my presence; he saw me not. I gave him a 
few whispers from the volume of light that his world 
had received. I saw him joyful and out of tears.” 

“ O Erudia,” said Orphanos, “how in character like 
the Master who gave us our book! He went about 
doing good; he observed the little things of our 
world; he held the multitudes still when even in one 
he heard the cry of distress.” 

“Ah ! ” said Erudia, “ how capable is your race of 
attaining to such mind, heart, and conduct! The 
large wants are made up of the small ones. The gen- 
eral poverty which all see, and the loud wail which 
all hear, are but the river of the contributing brooks. 
Only let the brooks receive necessary and timely at- 
tention," and the river will never flow; Your world, 
though it does it feebly now, must rise in higher im- 
itation of the Master’s example. This will greatly 
aid you in right progression. The river currents of 
distress and want will then cease to flow. This will 
make your world happy. Your race is capable of 
such improvement. But, Orphanos, I have brought 
along with me a glass, into which, if you look, you 
will see a picture.” 


ERUDIA, 


57 


Erudia gave him the glass, aad was silent, while 
Orphanos looked and beheld the picture. He looked 
intently, with changing countenance. He gave occa- 
sional glances at Erudia. When he was satisfied 
with looking, she asked him what he saw. 

Said he: “I saw a strange sight indeed — the most 
wonderful living chameleon that dwells among all 
the worlds : huge of size, and almost fearful to behold ! 
Every moment it changed its colors and the attitude 
of its body; and every time it changed its colors it 
feigned an attitude of body in a complimenting way, 
stretched out its long neck, raised its head, and be- 
held itself in admiration. It would gaze awhile, and 
then the colors would begin to fade. It then drew 
down its high head, and would writhe and struggle 
as if in pain and agony, until other colors appeared; 
it then contentedly and complacently beheld itself 
again with the same spirit of admiration. It would 
do this same thing over and over, and it seemed to be 
its life habit. It seemed very much dissatisfied with 
its form, and tried all shapes; but was never long sat- 
isfied with any. It did once or twice assume shape 
and color which I admired; but they were the quick- 
est to pass away. Near by I saw myriads of minia- 
ture chameleons trying to assume all the changes of 
form and color displayed by the large one. Some of 
these little ones seemed very awkward in their efforts; 
others showed great aptness. Whenever one fully as- 


58 ERUDIA. 

sumed the form and colors of the large one the oth- 
ers, as if envious, threw dirt upon it to spoil the imi- 
tation. Some of them looked very poor and hungry; 
they seemed to be Avasting life in colors, and cared 
for nothing else. Sometimes the older ones appeared 
indifferent for themselves, and assisted the young 
ones; especially did they do this for their young ones 
of a certain age. Many of these motherly ones 
appeared hungry and much wasted with care and 
anxiety. These are the things that I saw through 
the glass. O tell me, Erudia, what does it all 
mean?” 

Erudia. “ What you saw, Orphanos, illustrates a 
condition of your world. The large chameleon, like 
a queen, represents the imperialism of fashion; the 
smaller ones represent the fashionable millions of 
your race. Satan, the great enemy of your race, 
largely occupies the queen, and scarcely less the 
small imitators. More of your race, especially the 
female part of it, in this age of your progress, are 
passing over the river into the dark end of hades 
through the crime of fashion, than your judgment 
teaches; and especially are the numbers large in the 
quarters where your book is best known. It is 
overwhelmingly painful to think of the numbers. 
The queen of fashion is the silliest of all creatures, 
and stands rebuked by the word of your book and by 
the rationalism of your race. She inflicts pain upon 


ERVDIA. 


59 


herself to assume unnatural shapes, and exhausts her 
treasury for the sake of colors. She had rather bo 
hungry, in pain, and weary than to fail for a single 
day in producing something new in shape or color. 
She will suffer much in order to be imitated, adored, 
and worshiped. She can give no reason for her silly 
life, and can feel no remorse because she has no con- 
science. She is insensible to the jeers of those who 
laugh at her colors or ridicule her shapes. Her 
thoughts are upon the votaries who kneel at her 
shrine. She is very sensitive to cold, yet she is indif- 
ferent to the colors and shapes that ward it away. 
She lives and reigns like a nonsensical immortality. 
Many of her votaries die young, and many more aro 
so damaged in health that they become prematurely 
diseased and old. The strain is so great that many, 
of her imitators, in their young days, exhaust their 
strength, and look hungry; and, to save themselves 
from losing caste, are forced to find a territory where 
the power of the queen is more feebly felt. 

“Orphanos, this queen is very damaging to your 
world, and in its most beautiful parts has overthrown 
that simplicity which is the home of the virtues. 
She has brought much oppression that has been at- 
tributed to other causes. She has increased the sal- 
aries of teachers and officers of Church and State. 
She has made many believe that they and their chil- 
dren should imitate her shapes and colors however 


60 


ERUDIA, 


often they appear. Some of these demand a change 
in the comfortable dwelling, and some a new dwelling 
altogether. Some demand a new carriage before the 
old one is worn, and new spans of hoises, and many 
articles of luxury. The queen builds expensive 
■ schools, and thereby robs the poor of opportunity. 
She instills a nature of profligacy, and flatters the 
spendthrifts. She destroys thoughts of economy, 
blinds the eyes of her votaries from the oppression 
growing out of her government, and sets their 
thoughts upon modes of expending, more than upon 
habits of economy. 

“Fashion is damaging your world by organizing 
castes in the society of its people. You are all breth- 
ren, but fashion says not. You cannot be a happy 
world with such marks of caste in your society, and 
which exist without cause. In the happy worlds no 
distinctions of caste exist, except in so far as they 
are made by virtue and true nobility of character. 
In those worlds the jewels are set in bright eyes, and 
the manly ways of life. In them new and costly cos- 
tumes and jewelry that subserve no purpose but show' 
have no attraction. Your world bows too willingly at 
the shrine of an oppressive and virtue-killing queen. 
It can never be happy under the false anxiety, abuse, 
and suffering engendered by her government. This 
is one of the tangent lines your world has taken from 
the circle of virtue. It must be abandoned or greatly 


ERUDIA. 


61 


modified before your race can move on the way of 
right progression. 

“ Many are the evils growing out of the government 
of this queen. Among these 

Envy Is Prominent. 

“A greater vice has never crept into the moral uni- 
verse of the Lord God. It is envy that moves the 
dark spirit to war again st heaven, and do all in his 
power to destroy the light of the universe. Your 
world is full of envy. 

“ Orphanos, did you not see the imitating chamele- 
ons look upon the forms and colors of each other? 
What did they do when they saw one so perfectly 
imitate their queen? Did they not throw dirt upon 
it to spoil its form and colors? Why that conduct? 
It was the spirit of envy. So with many of the fair 
ones of your world. Their eyes are not only on the 
queen, but also on one another. Each one is striving 
to excel. They are unequal in skill and adv*antages. 
Some excel in form, others in colors, others again in 
both. But when one attains excellence the others 
all throw dirt; some but little, others more. Some 
have very poor advantages for excellence, yet they 
never fail to strive. These watch with great interest, 
and are among the best dirt-throwers. 

Hate. 

“ This is likewise gendered by the spirit of fashion, 


G2 


ERUDIA. 


and is a concomitant of envy. It springs as a spon- 
taneity out of a depraved nature. No reason can be 
given. One is seen of desirable form, of desirable 
costume, and therefore attractive. Hate rises in an- 
other; not that the form is despised, not that the cos- 
tume, not that the attraction; simply the person. 
The hater would have all these qualities and more. 
Who ean speak kind words of the one that is hated? 
Who can refrain the tongue from wicked speech? 
Or who is wise enough to refrain her lips, when 
words would be dangerous things. 

Enmities. 

“ Fashion has laid the foundation of numerous en- 
mities and brought about numerous wars. Enmity 
is open hostility and declared war. Enmity seeks 
victory, to destroy the foe, the one that is envied and 
hated whether foe or not. 

“Fashion witchingly draws the mind and heart 
from noble thoughts. It gives only beauty and at- 
traction without. The inner self is sacrificed. The 
objects of charity are overlooked. The widow’s tears 
are not seen, nor the orphan’s cry heard. The penu- 
ry of the poor and want of the beggar escape notice. 
Cold selfishness freezes the soul, and the world in its 
sorrow and want goes unheeded and uncared for by 
the gay and fasionable, who have sacrificed the bet- 
ter part of human nature, and cultivated the worse, at 


EEUDIA. 


63 


the shrine of a heartless and ever-changing queen. 
Orphanos, what does your book say?” 

Oephanos Quotes His Great Book. 

“‘For the fashion of this world passeth away.’ 
‘ Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or 
what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye 
shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and 
the body than raiment?’ ‘In like manner also, that 
women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with 
shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, 
or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but which becom- 
eth women professing godliness with good works.’ 
‘ Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorn- 
ing of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of 
putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man- 
na of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even 
the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in 
the sight of God of great price.’ 

“‘Moreover the Lord saith. Because the daughters 
of. Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth 
neck, and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they 
go, and making a tinkling with their feet: therefore 
the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the 
head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will 
discover their secret parts. In that day the Lord 
will take away the bravery of their tinkling orna- 
ments about their feet, and their cauls, and their 


64 


ERUDIA. 


round tires like the moon, the chains, and the brace- 
lets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments 
of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and 
the ear-rings, the rings, and nose jewels, the change- 
able suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wim- 
ples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine 
linen, and the hoods, and the veils.’ 

“ ‘And It shall come to pass, that instead of sweet 
smell, there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a 
rent; and instead of well-set hair baldness; and in- 
stead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and 
burning instead of beauty.’ 

“These, Erudia, are some of the lessons from the 
great book of our world. There is much more that 
might be scored in the catalogue of quotations. 
Many of my race know not to this day the instruction 
of our book, the simplicity of life which it teaches, 
and its rebuke of ostentation, and the foolish and 
costly display which vexes the many, and adds noth- 
ing to personal comfort.” 

Erudia. “True, Orphanos, only a small part of 
your race as yet know your book; even few of those 
to whom it has been bequeathed by their fathers 
know it well. "VVe are not now immediately, but re- 
motely concerned with others. The thing of most 
importance and greatest need is that your book be 
understood and obeyed in the quarters where it is 
known. A life in full accord with its instructions is 


ERUDIA. 


65 


the most beautiful rhythm in the universe. In such 
a life are heard the sweetest cadences. It is the 
rhythm that passes beyond the confines of your 
world. It is a melody not dependent on air; nor does 
it grow weaker or less attractive by distance. The 
far off angels hear the music with pleasure; and 
when the waves of it strike upon the happy worlds 
they rejoice, and join their songs in the harmony. 
The thing needed is beautiful life in the quarters 
where your book is known. The beautiful life will 
have more influence than a thousand heralds that 
proclaim the value of your book. It is the life of 
virtue growing out of your book that makes the con- 
quest. Even as the tree is known by its fruits, so 
will others judge the merits of your book by the hab- 
its and life of its votaries. 

“ Orphanos, I must repeat that fashion is a plague in 
the quarters of your world where your book is known. 
It has crept into the holiest precincts, and thousands 
are persuaded that they are pure and good; but they 
are not. The poor of your v/orld are neglected. The 
costly fashion and regalia of the body which perishes, 
and the unnecessary costly ornamentation of dwell- 
ings and churches occupy the thoughts and restrict 
the soul to such narrow selfishness that the wants of 
the poor are unheeded, their cry unheard, and the de- 
mands of a beautiful life unmet. They forget, under 
the power with which fashion holds them and sways 
5 


66 


ERUDIA. 


tlieir thoughts, that ‘it is more blessed to give than to 
receive;’ to administer to the poor than to indulge 
costly and useless ornameutation. 

“ The sway of fashion has robbed your solemn con- 
vocations of the solemnity due -when approaching 
into the presence of the Lord God, and changed them 
into assemblies met for entertainment. The ethics 
are sacrificed for theatricals, and the Lord God for 
the dark enemy of your world. Some of your teach- 
ers have forgotten to rebuke, and serve tables for 
the living they find. Fashion has made the tail 
the head; and hence, in many places, right judgment 
is overthrown, beautiful life lost, and your book virt- 
ually without effect. Such is a part of the condition 
of your world, even in the quarters where your book 
exists and should shine with brightest illumination. 
As long as it is thus, your world cannot be in right 
progression; it cannot be contented and happy. 

Woman and Her Influence. 

“Ah, Orphanos! woman is a powerful factor in your 
world. In much of its management she seems to 
have no voice; but she has a voice notwithstanding. 
She is the noiseless galvanic action that exerts a 
mighty force. Her power is more felt than seen. 
She neither receives the praise nor is made the scape- 
goat of many of the mighty revolutions that she ef- 
fects for the good or the ruin of society. In a great 


ERUDIA. 


67 


measure your world is wliat she has made it, and will 
be what she shall make it. Her original form and 
beauty were perfect. She feels painfully the damage 
that she has suffered through transgression, and is 
much disposed to patch herself to suit the taste of 
the world. She would repair ail losses to form and 
beauty, and be herself again. Oftentimes there is 
neglect of that inward grace that is far more impor- 
tant. Her life is a tremendous struggle, and she 
strives hard to make it beautiful and attractive. Only 
her judgment is at fault. While her wifc resists the 
deceptions of the lord with whom she dwells, and to 
whom she is a helpmate, the dark enemy of your 
world, whom she first entertained, understands her 
present weakness. He stirs her soul to seek original 
beauty and symmetry of form. She oftentimes for- 
getting in what it consisted, is won away into much 
costly and useless ornamentation. It catches on to 
other things, and the ruinous fashion of your world, 
which must pass away, has gone in withering blight 
into all things, even into the sanctuaries of the Lord 
God, and has wrought much corruption. 

“When woman ceases her foolish, costly, ever- 
changing and selfish expenditure, it will be the down- 
fall of much needless cost in many other things, and 
then will the fashion of your world strike the key 
of right progression. It will be an epoch in the 
history of your race, and the poor and suffering will 


68 


ERUDIA. 


celebrate it as the dawn of their relief and happi- 
ness.” 

Erudia became silent for a moment. Orphanos 
would have spoken, but he was so overwhelmed with 
thoughts of woman as a factor for good or evil in his 
world; of her leading weakness, and of the many vices 
and large train of abuses growing out of that weak- 
ness, that he could not utter a word. In the mean- 
time Erudia was looking in the far off distance, seem- 
ingly with her thoughts distracted from this world. 
She broke the silence and said: “Orphanos, there is 
a world that was once beautiful and fair. It had 
spring-time and harvest. The sunshine and evening 
shades chased each other delightfully. The ecliptic 
seasons, well regulated under law, gave that variety 
of air and temperature adapted to the happiness of 
the people. It was a delightful world. There was 
but little sickness; and when one wept, others wept 
in sympathy, and it cheered the heart of the afflicted. 
It was a world of bright eyes and sympathizing hearts. 
It was running in beautiful progression and all were 
happy. But an evil day came. The fashion of per- 
sonal and costly adornment crept into the mind and 
heart. It became a world of goddesses : creature wor- 
ship was instituted. The pride of life and vanity of 
show ran out upon the other things. It became 
cursed with all the vices that curse a world that 
worships at the shrine of fashion. The poor were 


ERUDIA. 


69 


no longer cared for, the sick were unpitied, the 
cold were unwarmed, the naked were unclothed, and 
the beggar driven from the door. So depraved and 
corrupt did that world become that the citizen of 
millions was praised for the charity of a thousand. 

“That world was incorrigible. The physical as- 
pect of it became changed; and it now swings with 
one side in perpetual day and the other in the dark- 
ness of night. The eyes of those in the light have 
lost their brightness and clear vision, so that they im- 
perfectly see the show and display of fashion, and no 
longer take interest in it. On the dark side things 
are so indistinctly seen that all unnecessary and costly 
ornamentations do not exist The sufferings of each 
one havg awaked in them the spirit of compassion, 
and now their chief happiness springs from holy and 
rightful ministrations. They have a promise of a 
coming time, a happy day, to which they are all look- 
ing in fond anticipation. The Lord God knows the 
remedy for the evils of all the worlds, and when the 
school of his known laws proves ineffectual, he gives 
ample time for thought and reform; when the pa- 
tience of his nature is exhausted, he applies the rem- 
edy which the law of his nature suggests, and, if pos- 
sible, brings the needed reformation. All worlds are 
made to feel the power of his name and the justness 
of his character, whether they attain to perfection or 
sink into the darkness and ruin from which he has 


70 


ERUDIA. 


withdrawn his light and influence. They who have 
long desired to live without him shall finally attain 
unto it. The Lord God understands the nature of 
all the worlds. His judgments are applied to suit the 
variety of the moral nature and condition of each one.” 

During the last words of Erudia, Orphanos listened 
with bowed head and questioning thought. He was 
familiar with the moon, and knew, according to the 
opinion of astronomers, that this planet, through 
density of matter on one side, or else through elec- 
trical force, is without that axial motion that gives 
delightful succession of day and night. He raised 
his head to ask if the world referred to is the moon; 
but Erudia was gone. Then he said to himself: “ No; 
it cannot be the moon; for Erudia looked far off in 
the distance, and said: ‘That world swings with one 
side in perpetual day, and the other in the darkness 
of night.’ It cannot be the moon; for that planet 
has a day and a night in each lunar month; but it is 
somewhere in the far away distance. Then this world 
of ours — this beautiful world of ours that can be made 
so lovely and happy — is not the only one in the uni- 
verse now plagued with the heartless and ruinous 
queen. If others are suffering under judgment be- 
cause of their folly, what in passing years may not 
overtake this one unless reform takes place in the 
manners of the people! ” 

As Orphanos walked through his garden homeward 


ERUDIA. 


71 


lie thought solemnly of the pride, ostentation, and 
foolish, costly, and unnecessary display of this world; 
of the toiling and suffering millions who, in some 
half-hidden way build for the enjoyment of the few. 
He thought of the vices and remorseless soul engen- 
dered by fashion in high places. Before retiring to 
rest he read from his great book as follows; “‘Is not 
this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of 
the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the 
honor of my Majesty? While the word was in the 
king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, 

0 king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: The 
kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive 
thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the 
beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass 
as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until 
thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom 
of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. The 
same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnez- 
zar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass 
as oxen, and his body was wet Avith the dew of heaven, 
till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his 
nails like bii'ds’ claws. And at the end of the days 

1 Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, 
and mine understanding returned unto me, and I 
blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored 
him that liveth forever, whoso dominion is an ever- 
lasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation 


72 


ERUDIA, 


to generation; and all the inhabitants of the earth 
are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to 
his will in the army of heaven, and among the in- 
habitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, 
or say unto him. What doest thou? At the same time 
my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my 
kingdom, mine honor and brightness returned unto 
me; and my counselors and my lords sought unto 
me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excel- 
lent majesty was added unto me. Now I Nebuchad- 
nezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heav- 
en, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: 
and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.’ ” 


CHHPTeR YI, 


(( EBUDIA,” cried Orphanos as they met again, 
“yon left me in surprise and wonder for the 
world which was so accursed with fashion, and the 
train of abuses that followed, and which now swings in 
space, one half in continual day and the other in per- 
petual night under judgment. Where away is it?” 

“Orphanos,” said Erudia, “before this twilight, 
while the king of day shone in his strength, did you 
not see the cattle and the other herds grazing in the 
pasture over yonder? You do not, you cannot see 
them now. Orphanos, what is the matter with your 
eyes ? The herds are not gone. What ails your eyes 
is that which ails your whole body, the senses given 
it, and the faculties of soul that give it life. Weak- 
ness is in the human frame, sown by the seeds of sin. 
The human ears and the human eyes are weak, and 
the human understanding. ^ 

“It is human thought that is wild, unbridled, and 
untamed. To see things that cannot be seen, to un- 
derstand things that cannot be understood, and to 
know things that cannot be known is human nature. 
There are eyes farther removed from those herds 
than we, yet this twilight, or even the darkness of 

( 73 ) 


74 


ERUDIA, 


/ 


/ 


night, does not affect their vision. They see them 
now as you see them at meridian hour. 

“ Orphanos, what is the matter with your eyes? It 
is their weakness, their want of capacity to take in 
the light as certain others do. I might now try to 
show you the herds, but my labor through the night 
would be vain and useless toil. But as the day 
would break your eyes would open, and lo! the herds 
would appear in view. 

“Orphanos, I cannot open your eyes to things 
which you cannot see, or give you arithmetic you 
cannot understand. Your race are far short of that 
they shall see and understand under right progres- 
sion. Let man tame his thoughts that are wild. 
There is enough to occupy his time of present vision. 
Let him learn the right application of the things he 
can see and know, and the knowledge that will bring 
happiness and peace to your world shall not be 
wanting.” 

Erudia Gives Orphanos a Glass into Which 
He Looks and Sees a Picture. 

There was a pause of a moment, and then Erudia 
said: “Orphanos, do you like to look on pictures? I 
know you love the beautiful; but to give you the les- 
sons that show you the condition of your race, if in 
pictures we indulge, they are not always beautiful; 
but for the sake of lessons will you look into this 


ERUDIA. 


75 


glass as yon did into one on a former evening, and 
tell me what you see?” 

Orphanos took the glass and looked. He did not 
cease looking until Erudia took the glass and asked 
him what he saw. 

Said he: “I beheld a very helpless and loathsome 
beast. It was very stupid, and* seemed to be dying of 
poison. Horrid reptiles were crawling about it, and 
as they would come near and put on angry looks, the 
eyes of the helpless, loathsome beast would show 
dreadful fright, and its flesh would draw as in fear of 
receiving a painful wound. About it was a very of- 
fensive odor, .unless the eyes deceive. Its abdomen 
was large, and its limbs in comparison looked small 
and feeble. The eyes were red, and changed their 
dullness only when the serpents came near and put 
on angry looks. It seemed between groans to be 
continually muttering something, but so incoherent 
and indistinct were the utterances that they could 
not be understood. Around it here and there were 
some old bottles, casks, and barrels from which it 
had drawn its nourishment. The beast looked wist- 
fully at these, but was unable to reach them or crawl 
to them. Just a little to one side stood a post. 
Upon it was a board with writing on it. The writ- 
ing was as follows: ‘This beast is far removed from 
its former self. It is a beast now, but was not always 
a beast. It once had bright eyes and intelligence. 


76 


ERUDIA. 


But in the journey of life it came to where there 
were two roads. Beautiful lights shone upon one, 
and darkness gathered about the other. There was 
much writing on the posts that stood around the 
head of either road, and some pictures. He looked 
for awhile on the pictures, and read some of the 
writing. He was just about starting on the road 
of beautiful lights, when suddenly there broke upon 
his ears music and laughter. He listened; the sounds 
came from only a little distance down the dark road. 
He changed his mind, and went down the dark road 
to where the laughter was. He found the company 
were all of one mind, and talked only of the light 
and pleasure farther on the way. He joined the 
throng on the dark road, soon forgot the writing that 
told him of the pleasures and happiness on the other 
way, made music with them, and helped them laugh. 
He gradually and unconsciously to himself changed. 
He lost his bright eyes, his intelligence, his virtue, 
all holy aspirations, and laudable ambition, and lo! is 
now a loathsome and wretched beast. He does not 
now think of or even remember the time when he 
came to the two roads, or any of the beautiful writ- 
ing.’ 

“I saw a care-worn, but otherwise beautiful creat- 
ure approaching the beast. Her habitude was neat 
but not artistic, and as tastefully arranged as the 
meager pattern would allow. She seemed to be in 


ERUDIA. 


77 


mucli sorrow, and scarcely raised her head to observe 
the things around. Several little ones followed her 
footsteps. They appeared in want and hungry, and 
began to look into the casks and bottles lying around 
the beast. In one of them they found some of the 
nourishment of the beast, and began to apply it to 
their lips, whereupon she took it away from them 
and broke the bottle. They began to cry, and she 
opened a small wallet which she carried, and gave 
them bits of bread. 

“There came along three men who did but little 
talking. They were dressed in uniform. One of 
them took the woman by the hand, ordered the little 
ones to follow, and led her away toward a house in 
the distance that had many windows. The other two, 
who were the stoutest, threw the beast into a wagon, 
and drove away in the direction of a lonesome, dark- 
painted building. These, Erudia, are the things I saw.” 

“Ah!” said Erudia, “you saw the picture, but you 
knew not that it was a reality. It represented what 
was then occurring in your world. Had you been 
there you need not have looked into the glass. 
Could I delay and have you look long enough, a 
thousand scenes would have appeared on your vision, 
all equally unhappy, all occurring now and daily in 
your world. But one is enough. Your world is fear- 
fully accursed with a nature and appetite that seek 
intoxicants. 


78 


ERUDIA. 


“ Woman to-niglit, not as yesterday in the show and 
colors of fashion, plays the part of a great sufferer. 
She is sunken into penury and absolute want. The 
pattern she wears is short in yards and without dis- 
XJlay. Her head is bowed in meekness and humility. 
Her thoughts are troubled, and her sorrow deep. 
The world, to her is more lonely than the grave. It 
has come upon her because her lord, to whom in 
young womanhood she gave her pure heart, made a 
great mistake when he came to the two roads of hu- 
man life, and in his mistaken choice made a beast of 
himself; and love, the altar of connubial happiness, 
was , sacrificed. 

“ The citizens of your world have a nature and ap- 
petite singularly strange. Yet much of it grows out 
of the nature of your creation. There has been a 
wonderful decline in the nature and habits of your 
race through transgression. This makes the battle 
you fight for right progression very severe; and he 
is a great hero who fights it well. 

Your world is a wonderful battle-ground, made so 
by your peculiar creation. The angels were created 
one by one, and all are separately the work of the 
Lord God. Many of the worlds are peopled after 
that manner. Indeed there are varieties of intelli- 
gent creations of which you now know nothing, and 
in your present state can know nothing. The angels 
and all worlds in which each individual is a distinct 


EliUDIA. 


79 


creation constitute a strong brotherliood. But your 
race sprung from a single pair, and under the law of 
population your race scarcely casts a ray of true 
brotherhood beyoud the circle of brother and sister, 
parent and child, husband and wife. Even these 
links are sometimes broken, and bring the saddest 
shades in the history of your world. The sorrowing 
wife, broken-hearted and weeping, is a sad spectacle 
in the picture you saw. The beast that was once fair 
to look upon, the delight of Tier eyes and joy of her 
heart, has passed the line of all amending. The hu- 
man life is too short to rise to the dignity of honored 
manhood from such depths of beastly nature ; at least 
this is a general rule which the observation and ex- 
perience of your world confirm. But why should he 
make another suffer so? O Orphanos, why do not 
your race rise in united brotherhood, and wipe the 
weeping eyes, and relieve the broken heart? 

“ But, Orphanos, you must see human nature in its 
mistaken efforts at right progression. How your 
world strives to make a show and to be at ease! 
What labor for beautiful cities and general material 
improvements that please the eyes! what catering 
to worldly tastes! what efforts for wealth! Yet when 
it is all acquired, what then? Out of the abundance 
effeminacy of character is developed. Intoxicants 
are indulged in, and general weakness presses your 
race down as with a heavy yoke. It shows that a 


80 


HBUDIA. 


loose, worldly ambition builds in vain, and its im- 
provements cannot endure. Your world lias been re- 
peating history over again and again. You have, in 
various parts of your world in its different ages, at- 
tained to the pinnacle of the most refined worldly 
improvements, but they have as quickly sunken into 
ruin. What is tlie matter with your world? Why 
does there seem to be no permanent improvement? 
Why have the fathers been laying up and their chil- 
dren wasting all along through the ages? Why do 
the people of a few generations build up here and 
there a beautiful worldly improvement and civiliza- 
tion, and those that follow as quickly pull it down? 
Why has your world been doing this all along 
through the ages of its history? It is because of 
the nature of its people; a nature that cannot be 
helped, only as they are seized with the right spirit 
of progression. 

“Durability will attend right progression. The 
nature of- your race will allow it. But in right pro- 
gression the angel side of human life is cultivated. 
It grows under moral and careful habits. It grows 
in soberness. Not as the hasty tree that topples in 
the storm, but as a tree not so eager to display foli- 
age and fruit, but has taken root to plant itself se- 
cure. It is a progression never overtaken with 
weakness, a civilization founded in virtue, in the 
principles that cannot be shaken. No beast such as 


ERUDIA. 


81 


you saw will appear in it; no such sympathizing, sor- 
rowing, poverty-stricken woman; no such neglected, 
ragged, and hungry children. In it intoxicants may 
exist, but temptation will be overcome. The evils of 
a corrupt human nature will be dominated by the 
force of an improved ruling will. 

“ Orphanos, just now your race are approaching a 
pinnacle of worldly grandeur unsurpassed and more 
general than in any past age. But will it stand? 
AVorlds as fair and with promise as bright have been 
smitten with mildew and blight. .They have gone 
down groaning into darkness. The present strain 
will be broken. There exists now the delight of 
labor and progress. There will come the enjoyment 
of rest. A satisfaction in present things will be at- 
tained. If intoxicants are so ruinous now, what will 
be their effect when comes around the century of 
rest and of feast. 

“ Your moral grandeur has not kept pace with your 
material development. This is the evil, the threat- 
ening menace. Your present civilization has not 
carried virtue into statute. The moral condition of 
the people would not allow it. The beast nature pre- 
vails beyond warrant of security. Intoxicants are 
undermining the civilization of your world, and are 
perhaps doing it to-day more damage than any other 
one thing. 

“But why do I delay? Why consume time when 
6 


82 


ERUDIA. 


your book contains all necessary information for 
your world. Wliat does it say ? ” 

Orphanos. “‘Wine is a mocker, strong drink is 
raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not 
wise.’ ‘ For the drunkard and the glutton shall come 
to poverty.’ ‘Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? 
who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who 
hath wounds without a cause? who hath redness 
of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they 
that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon 
the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in 
the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last 
it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.’ 
‘Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, 
that they may follow strong drink; that continue un- 
til night, till wine inflame them!’ ‘Nor drunkards 
shall inherit the kingdom of God.’ ‘ This our son is 
stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; 
he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of 
this city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so 
shalt t;hou put evil away from among you.’ 

“ These, Erudia, are a small part of what our book 
has to say against intoxicating liquors and drunken- 
ness.” 

Erudia. “And surely they are enough to open the 
eyes of the people of your world. In some of the 
worlds where appetite is not so strong, they would 
abundantly reform those who had indulged and found 


E BUD I A. 


83 


themselves traveling the road of the beast. But your 
race is very fickle and untrustworthy, and exhibits 
this nature more in its relation to appetite than in 
any other way. 

“Appetite builds a bulwark against reason, against 
the truth of your book, and exceedingly strong is its 
appeal for liberty in your world. It makes its slaves 
quickly forget the judgments of the Lord God. The 
beast you saw, and which was once a man, is a lesson 
disregarded by appetite; and even the sorrowing, 
broken-hearted wife and beggared, crying children 
appeal in vain. 

Noah’s Drunkenness. 

“Noah, the second father of your race, showed 
how hard it is for your race to control appetite. He 
knew that one of the greatest curses that afflicted the 
antediluvian world was intoxicants. They became 
a world of beasts. Yet this good man showed the 
weakness of his nature and the strength of his ap- 
petite in the midst of recollections that seemingly 
should have raised him to a higher standard of virtue. 
Although for centuries he had witnessed the drunk- 
enness, debauchery, and shame of the condemned 
and drowned world, and had providentially been 
borne over the tide in safety; yet he showed himself 
a slave to appetite. He knew the evils the vineyard 
and the wine had done among the people whose car- 
casses were yet visible over the plains where he trav- 


84 


EEUDIA. 


eled. These familiar lessons should have been in- 
structive and impressive. Yet among the first things 
Noah did when the flood dried* away was to plant a 
vineyard, make wine, and get drunk. Orphanos, 
what were the results? A drunken husband and 
father lay shamefully exposed. Just such a scene as 
that you do not have to travel far to see up to the 
present time in your world. But is this all? No, 
for a badly reared son appears in the scene, and in 
the rudeness and cruelty of his nature makes sport 
over his father’s nakedness. But when Noah came 
to himself, and the sons of filial love and piety report- 
ed the shameful conduct of Ham, he cursed that line 
of his family. Whence did the fountain of this evil 
rise? Can it be any thing else than Noah’s drunken- 
ness? Canaan was cursed, and that was right; but 
Noah did not escape. The silence of your book 
proves nothing. If there had been no drunkenness, 
Canaan need not have been cursed. If the father’s 
example had been always correct, Ham might have 
been a good son. 

‘‘In Noah are illustrated some of the evils growing 
out of intoxicants. It is the record of four thousand 
years ago, a time when the population of your world 
was limited to a single family. But blessed with 
long experience, and being eye-witnesses of God’s 
judgment, the recipients of his special love and fa- 
vor, and well acquainted with the excesses and abuses 


ERUDIA, 


85 


that led to the great destruction, Noah was without 
excuse for his crime, as much without excuse as his 
son who made sport. He knew that he had done 
wrong. The silence of your book concerning his 
criminality grows out of the fact that an obvious 
truth needs not to be stated. Noah’s drunkenness 
W’as like th'e drunkenness before the flood, like drunk- 
enness in all the ages, in all the worlds wherever 
drunkenness is found, like drunkenness in the pres- 
ent age of your world-criminal, and without apology 
or justification. 

“ Orphanos, your world cannot be in right progres- 
sion and carry along with it drunkenness and beastly 
life. The great enemy of your race dwells in this 
fiery, poisonous liquor that debauches the moral nat- 
ure, overthrows reason, and ruins society. Your 
great book says much of the evil of intoxicants. It 
says a sufficiency. Even were it silent, the right 
judgment of your race should universally condemn 
so accursed a thing. This judgment must prevail; 
until it does your world cannot travel the right paths 
of progress, the paths that will make your race uni- 
versally rich and happy.” 

The Human and the Divine Governments. 

Orphanos, ‘‘But, Erudia, our world is becoming 
more interested and excited on temperance ideas 
than at any former period of its history. A great 


86 


ERUDIA. 


temperance movement is on foot and advancing; vic- 
tory is coming, we think, in the not far off future. 
But we are at some loss to know where the line 
should be drawn between moral suasion and force, 
or in other words, between civil and personal liberty 
in the administration of the affairs of this world.” 

Erudia. “That, Orphanos, introduces the thought 
of the two governments in your world, the visible or 
human, and the invisible or divine. Your race is 
concerned with both these governments. The things 
that are Caesar’s belong to Caesar, and the things that 
are the Lord God’s belong to the Lord God. There 
should be no trespass. These governments are dis- 
tinctly separate, and yet they have a positive rela- 
tionship. Human government assumes a condition 
based upon the grade of the morality of the governed; 
otherwise your world will be in revolution. There 
can be no permanent peace only as the governed as- 
sent to the laws. Again, the morality of the people 
is based on the power of the Divine government, or 
which religious motives and sentiments influence. 
The human government changes with the chang- 
ing morality of the people; the divine government 
changes the morality of the people. 

“ God is at the head of one of these governments ; 
man is at the head of the other. The latter, when 
right and proper, is i n a high degree the offspring of 
the former. The more cultivated and morally im- 


ERUDIA. 


87 


proved your race become, the more will the human 
government shade into a likeness of the divine; the 
more will the governed be exempted from the au- 
thority of force; because there will be less need of 
it, and love which is stronger than force will reign 
with hallowed influence. 

“The political divisions of your world can with 
propriety in any judicious way put to an end any 
evils damaging to society, but not in the name of re- 
ligion. It can be done for the sake of good govern- 
ment. In the meantime it is the cultivation and im- 
proved thought of the divine government, oftentimes 
in the quietness of its work, that leads to and induces 
political legislation. Your Master said : ‘ My kingdom 
is not of this world.’ Yet it is in the world, and has 
its power and influence in political assemblies and 
legislative halls. 

“It is best not to afflict your world too much with 
human authority, much less with divine. There is a 
right path between two extremes, too little and too 
much government, or between anarchy and revolu- 
tion. No government is as bad a condition of society 
as we can conceive ; and yet it is sometimes not much 
worse than the scene of revolutions sometimes in- 
duced by too much governmenj;. Evils sometimes 
arise through lack of government, but in the man- 
agement of your world about as often through its 
over exercise. 


ERUDIA. 


“On your teachers of the divine law rests the 
weight of responsibility. They have the great task 
in hand primarily and directly of educating unto 
moral qualification, and indirectly there comes of it 
that system of human legislation and authority that 
keeps pace with the moral elevation. The work of 
the divine teacher is the precedent. Improvement 
in human government is the result of his power felt 
among men. 

“This, Orphanos, is the only righteous way of 
working the rule of government to avoid confusion 
and revolution. Take this lesson, Orphanos, and as 
your leisure affords think of the nature of your race.” 


CHflPTeR VII. 


H AKE this lesson, Orphanos, and as your lei- 



j. sure affords think of the nature of your race.” 
Such were the words of the good-natured, charitable 
Erudia as she vanished from sight. Orphanos did 
make human nature the subject of his meditations. 
He scarcely thought of any thing else till his eyelids 
closed in sleep. It was the first thing in his waking 
thoughts, and momentarily engaged his mind through 
the day. 

The most puzzling thing he saw in human nature 
is the awe-power one man exercises over another in 
efforts to reform, quit vice, turn his face toward 
heaven and God, and “ walk in his statutes and keep 
his judgments.” “Why,” thought Orphanos, “should 
a man have to labor for courage to say publicly or 
to old comrades in vice and folly, ‘I have learned 
the right way and will pursue it. I will bow my 
knee to the Lord God, and shape my life by the 
Divine law?’ Why is such the nature of man? 
Why is a man so overawed by his fellows and in- 
fluenced to delay, to even break down, and continue 
in sin through fear of human sentiment? Ah!” 
thought Orphanos, “human nature in the things 


( 89 ) 


90 


ERUDIA. 


which pertain to religion and the eternal reward is 
without rationality. It shows that blight and ruin 
is upon man, and that there is a great battle waging 
and a mighty struggle to regain the lost ground 
where the. trees are all good and the waters crystal; 
where the anthems of the birds fill the air with mel- 
ody; where the wine does not intoxicate, but ‘cheers 
the heart of man;’ and where is found the medicinal 
tree that shuts the door against decrepitude and pre- 
serves the beauty and agility of youth. But while 
the better judgment says, ‘ Yes; this is the way,’ human 
nature, blighted and ruined, hesitates and delays, 
consults with the worst form of human sentiment, is 
overawed and influenced by evil comrades, assumes 
all risks, and holds in check the moral progress of 
the world.” 

As Orphanos walked toward the grove in which he 
was again to meet Erudia he indulged the following 
soliloquy: “Human nature! What an uncultivated 
thing it is! How loath to turn into the right paths! 
How unfit to have existence, and how it stands in the 
way of the moral progress of the world! A man is a 
man seemingly in every thing else but this. He is a 
thing of great courage and yet of no courage. No 
task too hard, no battle too difficult, no courage lack- 
ing on the descending plane; yet without eyes and 
ears, without hands and feet, without strength, with- 
out courage in the things which lift up, dignify, and 


ERUDIA. 


91 


ennoble the man, and start him toward God. It is the 
last thing of a man that can be cultivated; the thing 
that all the other powers of man must drag up before 
God and ask him to make it better. O thou dis- 
gusting — ” 

Orphanos had now entered the grove, and there is 
no telling what evil things he would have said of hu- 
man nature, but just as he repeated the word “dis- 
gusting,” he saw Erudia meeting him at the prepared 
seats. As they took their seats Erudia smilingly 
said: “Orphanos, what were you talking about, and 
to whom were you talking?” 

“O Erudia,” replied Orphanos with embarrass- 
ment, “you know it all well. You know when you 
left me last evening you said: ‘As your leisure affords 
think of the nature of your race.’ This I have en- 
deavored to do; and as I came walking into the grove 
I was still thinking of human nature, and was per- 
haps thinking aloud, as is sometimes my custom.” 
Erudia came nearer laughing outright than on any 
former occasion. This world does sometimes afford 
a little fun, no doubt, even to the angels. 

Erudia gave Orphanos a small yellow box and 
asked him to open it. He did this, and as he did it 
his head fell back and rested upon the back of his 
chair. After a moment Erudia took the box from his 
hand, and immediately Orphanos av/oke. She then 
asked him what he had seen. 


92 


ERUDIA. 


“Ah! Erudia,” said Orphanos, “tell me first wheth- 
er I have been asleep, and if so how long? ” 

Erudia. “ Orphanos, yon have certainly been asleep, 
and only for a short time. The spell that came upon 
yon was for the purpose that you might see great 
truths and make' your observations as rapidly as the 
human imagination in dreaming hour. But, come 
now, tell me what you saw.” 

Oiyhanos. “O Erudia, I have certainly for the 
moment been transferred to, or at least caught a 
glimpse of a world unknown to my race. The world 
I seem to have visited was emphatically a world of 
gold. Gold was massed on every side. The mount- 
ains were gold; and the valleys were so plagued with 
gold that it was exceedingly difiicult to travel among 
the heaps, or to find a soil out of which grew any 
vegetation. Here and there appeared what seemed 
to be the wreck of what were once beautiful cities and 
country seats. I roamed among the fallen and ru- 
ined cities and country villas looking for and anx- 
ious to find some of the inhabitants of this world of 
gold. I found none. I knew they were there or 
once had been, for too visible were the traces of their 
work to think otherwise. I saw the ruined shafts of 
what were once noble monuments, and many imple- 
ments of warfare. I saw nothing that indicated an 
assembly hall that would inspire noble character; at 
least the statuary and wasted paintings, so far as I 


ERUDIA. 


93 


could obtain knowledge, did not so impress me. I 
saw scattered about tlirougli the cities and over the 
country many pieces of curiously shaped gold coin 
and jewelry, and figured over with much cunning 
and device; but these appeared to be very ancient. 
Indeed, this seemed to be a world cursed with gold.” 

Erudia. “ Orphanos, the universe is filled with cu- 
riosity and mystery. Many things are enigmas to 
the most intelligent cherubim. The full creation 
cannot keep pace with the steps of the Lord God 
in his management of the universe. The two great 
forces, the mechanical and chemical, are in full oper- 
ation; the one here, the other there; the one in this 
world, the other in that; and sometimes, as in your 
world, a great conflict of principles tending toward 
some certain idtimatum. 

“ Orphanos, you saw a condition of things now in 
the universe of the Lord God. That far away world, 
as you rightly judged, is far removed from its former 
self even in the physical aspect of things. Beautiful 
country seats and cities in wasting ruin; a planet of 
cemeteries and death; no soil, no vegetation, but all 
is gold. Orphanos, that world, even as yours, was 
created under law. The law was kept inviolate for a 
time, even for hundreds and thousands of years. 
But in that law it was commanded that a metal, 
scarce, yellow, and hard to find, hidden away in the 
mountains, should not be used for any purpose, nor 


94 


EEVDTA. 


should it be touched; that it was a beautiful metal 
and enticing, but in it were secretly shut up the mul- 
titude of evils which, if let loose by touching and us- 
- ing the metal, would ruin the race and destroy the 
world; that whosoever touched this metal would 
have his nature changed from good to bad, and that 
the things he loved by creation he woukl hate, and 
the things he hated he would love. That was once a 
happy world; happier far than your world has ever 
been. The people lived a uniform age without de- 
crepitude, far more than a hundred years free from 
pain. They had no dread of dying, or rather passing 
to another world, for it was more on this wise than 
dying. They were full of assurance, and an exchange 
of worlds was a change of company, friends, and ac- 
quaintance behind for those who had gone before. 
Their social accord was most beautiful, their songs of 
the richest melody. They were one people. There 
existed no embittered feeling. There was no war in 
that world, no feeling of hate ; they loved one anoth- 
er. They were for many thousands of years a great 
brotherhood, and their years were longer than the 
years of your world. 

Aftee a Long Time Gold Found in the 
Mountains. 

‘‘ They were created under law, and had for a time 
so long kept the law that there appeared to be little 


ERUDIA, 


95 


or no danger. All metals were abundant; no scar- 
city of any that were needful in the stage of improve- 
ment and happiness of that' world. Only one re- 
mained hidden away for a long period. But on an 
evil day some one brought in a specimen of gold 
from the mountains. Many of the people touched it, 
and became contaminated by the touch. It created 
in their natures an eager desire for it. More and 
more came in from the mountains, and they began 
to use it for ornamentation, and under the authority 
of their government they began to shape it into 
forms to be used as money. In this w^ay it was 
touched by all, and aH who touched it became at- 
tainted. 

“Gold found in the mountains lay at the founda- 
tion of a multitude of evils, and finally so corrupted 
their manners that their once happy world was made 
a waste place by the superabundance of that which 
they loved unto their destruction. Many were the 
efforts made by the Lord God to break down the ac- 
cursed thirst for gold. Many were the teachers sent. 
In the power of oratory and melody of song did they 
endeavor to draw the general mind away from the 
accursed thing, but with little avail. 

“Affairs grew worse from time to time. Envy, hate, 
pride, and war took the place of a former brother- 
hood and love. The disgrace and moral ruin were 
supreme. The degradation at last sunk into a plane 


96 


E BUD I A. 


out of which there could be no rising up again; a 
condition as bad or perhaps even worse than your 
world when it was destroyed by a flood of waters. 
When there anywhere arose a pious father the wicked 
influences and vile enticements won his children 
away from him. When there sprung up in any quar- 
ter a teacher of righteousness he was derided and un- 
heard. 

“ It took more than a thousand years to destroy that 
world, and the years were longer than the years of 
your world. The atmosphere gradually changed to 
a yellowish tinge, and in an unseen atomic distilla- 
tion the gold began to appear here and there. It 
came so gradually and for so long a time that the 
people scarcely knew how it came. But by and by, 
after many generations, it becoming more and more 
difficult to live, that once beautiful and happy world 
was destroyed with gold. 

Avaeice the Subject of the Evening. 

“Now, Orphanos, you tell me you have been think- 
ing of the nature of your race. The lesson of the 
evening is concerning a single feature of that nature. 
Your world holds a race of gold-getters and gold- 
worshipers. In order that I may be the better under- 
stood, may be I ought to say your race stretches too 
hard after wealth for its own sake, in seeking right 
progression and happiness. It makes them forgetful 


ERUDIA. 


97 


of more important things, and tends to place one 
above another, and too much to dominate one another 
through unequal possessions. Your race have a nat- 
ure largely of this kind; and this nature of estimat- 
ing a man by his gold has even now too much drawn 
the impassable lines of caste in society; and this 
makes you forget the brotherhood of your race. 

Avarice Increases with Material Develop- 
ment OF A Country. 

“ You only have to turn the pages of the history of 
your world and you will see that the more materially 
improved and worldly wise your race become the 
more is their love of wealth increased, and conse- 
quently less genuine sympathy. Never in the histo- 
ry of your race was there a time when your world 
was so richly developed in its material resources; 
never was there a time when your race were so 
worldly intelligent; and never was there a time when 
the people were more avaricious. 

‘‘The thought is on gold more than on any one 
thing, more than on all things besides. The talk is 
on plans of money-getting, or if not talked, in the 
deep silence of studv unto the same end. This in- 
tercepts the moral progression of your race. Had 
not avarice increased proportionately with your 
worldly wisdom and your material development, mo- 
rality would have been on a higher plane. 

7 


98 


ERUDIA. 


The Divine Order of Things Eeversed. 

“Orplianos, good sometimes comes out of evil. 
Your race is not running the line of the divine will. 
Your material development has too far outstripped 
your moral elevation. A material development that 
grows out of moral elevation is the divine order. 
When a world runs its race under this rule but few 
evils rise. Your world, by reversing the divine law in 
seeking material development and progress, has, in 
over-anxiety and haste, left moral culture so far behind 
that the Lord God is degraded through exaltation of 
the creature. 

“ The final physical development and beauty of your 
world would come in its own good time if your race 
should build it on the moral foundation of the divine 
order. It would come under the divine rule of right 
progression, and without the confusion, revolution, 
and oppression that grow out of a policy that contra- 
dicts it. 

What the Hand of the Lord God Will Bring out 
OF It. 

‘‘ Orphanos, since your race is so abundantly seized 
with the spirit of avarice, the Lord God sees fit to al- 
low the wealth of your world to be centralized into 
the hands of a few individuals. He lets loose the spir- 
it of enterprise, and in this way is hastening your 
world into a climax of material development. It is 


ERVDIA, 


99 


the unnatural way of progress, but the divine nature 
and character allows it, and man shall soon see and 
reap the fruits of it. 

“ This order of things is accompanied with much 
envy, hate, unrest, revolution, and distress. The pres- 
ent generations are passing through and enduring 
many evils, and necessary, too, since the Lord God 
suffers your world to be tried in this way. But a bet- 
ter day will come even on this line of progress. The 
climax will finally be attained; competition will finally 
solve the problem; or at least, turn such light upon it 
that the human heart will be more than half robbed 
of its avaricious ambition. 

“ The peoples are the governments, and the mate- 
terial development and improvement that have come 
of their labor and their treasure, into whatsoever hands 
it has fallen for a time and been directed, will drop 
at the feet of those governments either to be lost or 
else to be operated at only a self-sustaining per cent. 
Great wealth will finally, through competition and 
otherwise, break its own neck so far as it relates to in- 
come to the owner. It will finally become an unprof- 
itable strain on the one who possesses it. The result 
of this toil will finally revert to the peoples who pro- 
duced it. It will simply run its course. There need 
be no armed revolution. All worldly wisdom and the 
ways of man’s device live and then die. This is the 
end of it. 


100 


ERUDIA. 


Inordinate Love of Money and a Happy World 
Are Not Congenial. 

“The most imperishable thing in yonr world, it 
seems, is the love of money for its own sake. It is 
the hardest thing to root out of the nature of your 
race. Yet it must go, and the Lord God will see that 
it shall go. He intends, however, that man shall 
make a history that will rebuke his device and his 
money-getting manners at every corner of the street, 
and will at the same time utilize the material improve- 
ment of your world unto the honor of his own name. 

“ Your world can never be good and happy as long 
as this passion is unrestrained. Man will finally see 
the folly of it. Great wealth will finally prove itself 
the extremest folly, producing in its possessor pain, 
anxiety, toil, and strain without reward. Human plans 
and human manners will by and by, through the prov- 
idence of the Lord God, destroy this foolish passion 
in man, or at least so far abate it that there will rise 
a better chance for right progression. 

“ In the present condition of your race, on account 
of the inordinate love of money, there is little room 
left for disinterested friendship and love. O Or- 
phanos, can you not see that moral progression and 
universal happiness cannot be built on this line? 
Yerily it cannot; for it is full of jealousy, fraud, hate, 
selfishness — every thing else but love. 

“ Love is the plane on which the happiness of your 


ERUDIA. 


101 


world must be constructed. Enterprise and industry 
are not inconsistent with it, but they will then be ex- 
erted in right directions and not unto selfish ends. 
And gold, if it need be that it exist, will be sought 
not for the love of itself, but to be utilized for that 
which is loved, the work of moral progression, the 
general happiness of the race. 

“A great change must come over the heart of your 
race. Look about you and see how little your race 
are doing for the Lord God, and bring in contrast the 
amount of enterprise and bustle for the material im- 
provement of your world. It is not the divine order 
of progressive civilization. All this material develop- 
ment is founded in the creature’s love for gold. The 
same conceit is in it that was in the heart of Nebu- 
chadnezzar when he openly expressed in pride of life 
his exaltation. A great change must come over 
your race. Even your good people love money too 
much for its own sake. Some teachers themselves 
serve the Lord God with divided mind. They live 
not the example, and therefore have not the heart to 
teach in fullness the way to break down the love of 
gold for its own sake. 

‘‘As immortal as seems the love of money for its 
own sake, the time is drawing close to hand when the 
spirit of it will be broken. There is no hope for the 
general happiness of your race only through the chan- 
nel that it be broken. 


102 


EltUDIA. 


The Times Token the Folly of It. 

‘‘When money has completed the material devel- 
opment of your world, and beautified it with worldly 
wisdom and worldly taste, there will still be unrest. 
Then will your race become sober in thought and more 
serious in contemplation. The visible will be lost 
through thoughts of the abstract. Then will men be 
brought to see far more beauty in law and order, 
purity and righteousness, than in the vain show that 
comes of the love of money. Then will avarice, the 
tyrant that has so long afflicted your world and cursed 
it with a thousand evils, show signs of decay. It 
must be so; the Lord God will see to it that it shall 
be so. 

A WOED FKOM THE GkEAT BoOK OF ThIS WoKLD. 

“Tell me, Orphanos, what your book says of the 
love of money for its own sake.” 

Orphanos, “ ‘ The love of money is the root of all evil.’ 
‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the 
whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a 
man give in exchange for his soul? ’ ‘ One thing thou 
lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and 
give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heav- 
en: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.’ ‘And 
Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, 
how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of God? and the disciples were astonished 


ERUDIA. 


103 


at liis words. But Jesus answereth again, and saitli 
unto them, children, how hard is it for them that trust 
in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than 
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God/ 

, “ O Erudia, our great book is full of rebuke of that 
nature that seeks riches for their own sake, and out 
of which grows all manner of evil. I will read but 
one other part in which hypocrisy, deceit, and lying 
are all practiced for the sake of a few dollars: ‘But 
a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his 
wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the 
price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a 
certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But 
Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine 
heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part 
of the price of the land? While it remained, was it not 
thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine 
own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in 
thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto 
God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, 
and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all 
them that heard these things. And the young men 
arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and 
buried him. And it was about the space of three 
hours after, v^hen his wife, not knowing what was 
done, came in. And Peter answered unto her. Tell 
me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she 


104 


ERUDIA. 


said, Yea, for so mucli. Then Peter said nnto her. 
How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the 
Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which 
have bnried thy husband are at the door, and shall 
carry thee ont. Then fell she down straightway at 
his feet, and yielded np the ghost.’ ” 

Erudia, “There is one portion in yonr book, Or- 
phanos, which I thought yon surely would have read. 
My sisters and I once read it over together in the 
place where the books of the universe are kept, and 
had much talk over the ruinous love of money in 
your world, and we all agreed that if the nature of 
your race oould be amended in this respect your 
world would have a far better chance to become 
what it ought to be and what it can be. It is the 
price for which the Lord your King was sold. 

“Iscariot was not more corrupt in heart than 
thousands of your race at the time, or even than 
thousands of your race at the present time. He sim- 
ply had opportunity to show to the world the condi- 
tion of his heart. Many others would have done as 
he did, nor would some of them have suffered such 
deep remorse for the crime. The degradation of 
your race is more than it appears to be. You judge 
one another by the deeds you do; not by the thoughts, 
the will, and the desire. 

“It is fortunate for your world that all lurking 
viciousness in the nature of your race is not supplied 


ERUDTA. 


105 


with opportunity. Were it so, your people would ap- 
pear far more criminal and degraded in the eyes of 
one another than they do. They would see each 
other in the light they are seen by the divine Mind 
who reads the thoughts, the will, and the desire. 

“ The more deeply the fact of the degradation and 
ruin of your race is seen, proportionately do the wise 
and good sympathize, suffer, and labor for your mor- 
al elevation. This is the reason why no one has ever 
sympathized, suffered, and labored for the improve- 
ment of your race as did your Lord and Master. 
The people of your world who are not deeply im- 
pressed with the criminal nature and ruin of your 
race cannot have that sympathy that stirs them to 
great sacrifice and diligence for moral development. 

Earnestness Is the Great Conquering Sword. 

“ When a man is in earnest he shows it in personal 
sacrifice, in sympathy, and in diligence. Did all the 
teachers of the moral development of your race have 
full conception of the moral degradation of your 
world; in other words, did they believe the full rec- 
ord of your book, which is the speculum that opens 
to view the degraded heart of your race, they would 
build on it a tremendous, conquering earnestness 
that would meet with no defeat. 

“ But why should I delay ? The love of money for 
its own sake! a nature of this character! Think of 


106 


ERUDIA. 


it! The search for gold in forgetfulness of wisdom 
that is ‘ more precious than rubies; ’ the acquiring of 
it through honesty and dishonesty; through hypoc- 
risy, cunning, fraud, deceit, usury, default, theft; 
through an shades and types of criminality; even 
through betrayal and sale of life — show some of the 
channels along which a man may walk and see the 
deep-stained corruption of the human nature. But 
a man must walk with clean lips and a pure heart. 
If he goes otherwise, he will find an apology for near- 
ly all that is corrupt and groveling. 

“Apology is one of the great weaknesses of your 
race — apology for a thousand things for which there 
can be no apology. Who has ever apologized for 
Iscariot? Yet your world to-day furnishes ten thou- 
sand duplicates of the man, and occasionally one in 
apostleship; yet while opportunity is not afforded to 
betray with a kiss, nevertheless they are betraying 
Him through the love of money for its own sake. 
For every one of these there is sought an apology.” 

“ O Erudia,” said Orphanos, “ you almost frighten 
me with your instruction and the uncovered naked- 
ness of our world’s criminality through the love of 
money. It is true, it is all true. Our race up to the 
present time seem to have made little effort to get 
out of the sloughs of avarice. The love of money 
could be no stronger than it is now. It affects all 
classes of our world’s society. I see plainly that it 


ERUDIA. 


107 


is in the way of moral progression, and that onr 
world cannot travel in the right paths with the love 
of gold so deeply rooted in the human heart.” 

Erudia. “ The love of money in your race is strong- 
er now than it ever was in your world’s history. It 
has created prejudice in the rich and envy in the 
poor. It has drawn lines of caste in society that can- 
not be passed. Moral worth and intelligence are not 
the passports they ought to be. It would fain show 
a touch of virtue by giving employment to the mill- 
ions of the poor. That is well; but the little virtue 
is swallowed up and lost in the sea of iron force, 
wretchedness, and degradation that follow. 

‘‘ O Orphanos, the love of money for its own sake 
is most of all things in the way of the moral progres- 
sion and happiness of your world. Tour great book 
shows this evil in the nature of your race — how deep- 
ly it is i)lanted, and the evils that follow; that it is 
against moral progress and happiness; that it must 
be broken, and the evils growing out of it destroyed; 
that not till then will the day-dawn of universal lib- 
erty and happiness appear. 

The Pious Ake Not Exempt. 

“ Your observation will teach you that the love of 
money for its own sake is deeply rooted in those re- 
garded pious of your world. So much so that the 
difference between them and others in using the 


108 


ERUDIA. 


means of money-getting is not largely perceptible. 
This spirit must be broken; it will be broken. The 
driving-wheels are now steering your race in the di- 
rection of such calamity as will show the folly of 
such intense love of gold for its own sake. 

“Human nature in its thirst for money will not 
hear reason. This love is a passion so inherent, so 
deeply planted, so slightly curbed by the lessons of 
wisdom that calamity is necessary, inevitable. It is 
the lamentable condition of your race. The breakers 
are ahead; they are in the line of march; the mile- 
stones have writing of warning on them. 

Erudia Quotes the Great Book of Our World, 
AND Continues Her Discourse. 

“Orphanos, hear your book: ‘God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.’ That reveals to your race a di- 
vine nature which will eventually bring your world 
into general and permanent happiness. The inherit- 
ed and intensified thirst for gold must be destroyed. 
The same love that gave the Son will accomplish the 
latter work; if not by the lessons of wisdom with 
which he has blessed your world, it will eventually 
and inevitably come of calamity. Yet there will be 
no hurry. The Lord God never hurries in his work. 
In the perfection of his character, and with wisdom 


ERUDIA. 


109 


equal to the task of the universe, he consults the- 
ripeness of times for all worlds, and performs his 
acts as a record to be remembered, and as data to be 
consulted by the creatures of his hand, that their 
judgment may become correct under rebuke, and 
drive them finally along the ways of right progres- 
sion and unto ultimate happiness.” 

A Moment of Silence. 

Erudia became -silent and looked listlessly as though 
she saw things afar. Orphanos wanted to speak, but 
knew not what to say. He would have apologized for 
the nature of his race and its inordinate thirst for 
gold; but he felt too much self-condemned, and knew 
too well the multitude of evils that grow out of the 
love of money for its own sake. He felt too well com 
vinced that whatever may have been the improvement 
of his race in other respects, the love of money re- 
mained as strong as at any time during the history of 
his world. He seemed to realize that the “love of 
money is the root of all evil.” He looked up, and the 
following writing appeared before his eyes, or else so 
deeply in his thoughts that he seemed to think that 
he saw it as on canvas: “Through the love of money 
Ahab slew Naboth, and Iscariot betrayed the Son of 
God with a kiss. Through the love of it wars have 
been waged, and millions of lives sacrificed. Through 
the love of it judges pervert judgment, and officers be- 


110 


EliUDIA. 


' tray their trust. Through the love of it the rich pass 
around human want, and their eyes are not open to 
the obligations of religion. Through the love of it 
chastity is wasted, and virtue destroyed. Through 
the love of it free citizens sell their rights in govern- 
ment, and purchase for themselves the manacles that 
bind them in slavery. In order to obtain it thousands 
lose sight of all moral good, and care not what follows 
so that they may be rich.” 

“O Erudia,” said Orphanos, “our world is a sad 
one, but need not necessarily remain so. The love of 
money is our great trouble. Our race is too much 
occiipied with the things of this life. Could their 
thoughts be called away from gold, they would have 
more time to think soberly, and out of their medita- 
tions would grow thoughts and a judgment that would 
enable them to build on a better foundation.” 

The Great Battle Yet To Be Fought. 

Erudia. “ The religious principles taught in your 
great book will undermine and overthrow all others. 
But this does not imply that your world will be hap- 
py and in peace. The present condition of your race 
is such that the people are more occupied with 
thoughts and plans that will bring disaster to other 
systems of faith than with the garnishment of the 
home hearth-stone. Breaking down the religion of 
others does not imply the destruction of the thirst for 


ERUDIA. 


Ill 


gold. There may yet remain the pride and haughti- 
ness that come of its love. 

“ There is a greater battle for your world to fight 
than the overthrow of other religions. It is the bat- 
tle of religion or no religion; the battle whether your 
book is the truth or a lie; the battle of God or no 
God. The battle in which your race is engaged of 
overthrowing all other religions may be gained, as 
erelong it will, with existing and general thirst for 
gold; but that which is to come will require a higher 
purity; a purity that holds that ‘the earth is the 
Lord’s and the fullness thereof ; ’ a purity that gold, 
if it be sought, will not be for its own sake, but for 
moral development and the general happiness of your 
race. 

“ Orphanos, do not be afraid of that age in the his- 
tory of your world. It will be the heroic age. Vic- 
tory will come at last. The love of money for its own 
sake must fall in order to gain the battle. Nothing 
can withstand the army in whom it has perished. 
That age will develop great love and aifection, and 
the brotherhood of man will be established. Adieu 
for the evening.” 


CHHPTeR VIII. 


r .C)HEN Orphanos entered the beautiful grove he 
saw that Erudia had already come and was seated. 
She was busy reading a scroll, and for awhile she was 
so deeply absorbed in its perusal and her thoughts that 
she seemed not to notice his coming and his presence. 
He took his seat, but said nothing. Her countenance 
was much illuminated, and her look was very joyful. 
She was reading the last paragraphs; and as she ended 
the reading, more in soliloquy than otherwise, she said: 

“O blessed truth! How wonderful the ways of the 
Lord God! How high his wisdom! How minutely 
he knows the ways of his creatures! and what foun- 
dations he lays for their moral development and con- 
sequent happiness! Out of weakness comes strength, 
and the crooked is made straight. The spiritually 
dead are made alive, and he feeds the poor on apples 
of gold. He lays a foundation to heal a world of its 
disease, yet he is in no hurry. He works by forces 
unseen, yet they are mighty pillars of support, and 
there is no strength like unto them. 

“Among the worlds the earth is not forgotten, 
though it be a little speck and far estranged from up- 
rightness. The echo of his truth is heard, and alarm 
( 112 ) 


ERUDIA. 


113 


pervades the ranks of the wicked. Worldly wisdom is 
rebuked by the simplicity of his reason, and the 
proud are blinded by the luster of his truth. He 
makes no distinction among the worlds, nor among 
the men of the earth. He measures them not by their 
talents of gold, nor does he estimate their worldly 
wisdom. He has constructed a way on which all 
must walk; they who do not shall be in the list of the 
unworthy. His wisdom raises the lowly and brings 
down the high-minded, and they can walk together 
in fond affection and unprejudiced brotherhood.” 

The Subject of the Evening. 

When Erudia finished her worshipful abstraction 
she looked kindly and entreatingly at Orphanos, and 
said: 

“ Orphanos, I have just been reading the ‘ Tri- 
umphs of Faith.' It is not a book of your world. It 
is not necessary that you should know its story. In- 
deed, it would not be a laudable act in me, nor am I 
quite certain that it would be lawful for me to tell 
it to you. I have come to talk with you to-night 
about this foundation principle of all virtue. There 
are two forces that hold the worlds to the great mor- 
al center of the universe: the one is the love of the 
Lord God; the other the faith of his intelligent 
creatures. The faith of the creature united with the 
love of God is a cord that has never been broken; 

8 


114 


EEUDJA. 


it cannot break. The faith may rot away, bnt no en- 
emy has power to break the cord; for it is interwov- 
en in the nature and character of Him who is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

“ There can be no faith of the creature only as it is 
built on the love of God; yet the love of God exists 
even in the absence of the creature’s faith. In the 
history of the universe it may be, and even has been, 
that all tried and consistent means have failed to 
awake the creature’s faith. The Lord God sees the 
hopelessness of such a world, and when his nature 
and character will no longer endure it, he cuts it off 
and builds the foundations anew. It may be with the 
suddenness of the deluge of which your book treats, 
or through the gradual changes wrought by time. 
Any way he will not suffer such a moral reproach to 
be continued in his universe. 

Faith a Mighty Spiritual Power. 

‘‘Faith is not compassed by space in its effect. It 
has a common center in the wisdom that conceived 
the plan of the universe and the power that framed 
the worlds and set them flying in order. It is the 
link that connects man and the morally good of all 
worlds with the Lord God, and gives them power 
through him. It is the only power in man that opens 
the eyes and ears of the Lord God compassionately 
toward him. 


ERUDIA. 


115 


“Though the business of a new world may be in 
progress, the call of faith will be heard. Such is the 
nature and character of the Lord God that he has ar- 
ranged that he may be touched by his creatures in 
this way. It is one of the still forces of the universe 
which the creature 'in purity and piety is permitted 
to handle, and it is as powerful as it is still. It is 
free for all, yet only the good can use this power. 

“Like the gravitating force that gives weight to 
material things; like attraction that cannot pull un- 
less it is likewise pulled, so faith pulls upon the 
Lord God and has weight and influence with him. 
He feels the effect of the pull. Such is his nature 
and character in his relation to the creatures of his 
making that when they pull on him in faith he fee s 
the sensation and is moved by their strength, and is 
no more troubled than the millions of attractive in- 
fluences in the universe upon one another, and admin- 
isters to all with intelligence as readily. 

“Faith in the creature is the only power that en- 
ables him to divide work with the Lord God. Through 
it the creature obtains a passport into a field of use- 
ful labor. He can enter only as he wears the badge. 
Should he lose it, he is driven out with honors 
wasted and privileges gone. Faith in the creature is 
a condition that causes things to be or not to be; 
some things, but not all; the things that pertain to 
the moral development of the worlds and the happi- 


IIG 


ERUDIA. 


ness o£ the creatures; the things that reach out to the 
perimeter of the law under which all creatures are 
made. 

Faith Is Like a Main Stem ok Fountain. 

“ Hepentance is the grief and sorrow that come of 
faith. Prayer is the cry of faith. Good works are 
the product of faith. All these come of faith. It is 
the rock out of which flow the tears of sorrow and 
grief; at the same time it sends forth the stream of 
buoyant hope, and yields the fruits of consolation 
that wipe the tears away. Prayer and importunity 
dwell in and are continuous with faith. Faith is 
the continually speaking voice unto God. It is a 
voice rising above and not dependent on air for 
vocal sounds. Faith leads to repentance; increas- 
es into trust and reliance; brings forgiveness of sins; 
grows; enables a man to dominate his evil nature and 
be a moral hero worthy, not as a cipher, but as a man 
tried and proved, to fill a place into which the Lord 
God may appoint him. The Lord God wants a man 
to be something, a hero; to exercise the gifts that 
naturally belong to him; he wants him also to use the 
power that comes of faith. 

The Faith of This World Examined. 

‘‘ Orphanos, your world very much needs faith. It 
is very much without faith. It thinks it has faith. 


ERUDIA. 


117 


It is very much deceived. There are too much con- 
fusion, carnal-mindedness, and unrelenting spirit in 
the professed faith of your world. The line discrim- 
inating the camp of the professedly pious is not suf- 
ficiently marked. It is too much walked over, disre- 
garded, and unseen. Too much like geographical 
lines not made to be seen, merely to convey ideas. 

“ In order to the moral progression of your race, 
you need a faith that is plainly visible in the conduct; 
a faith that drav/s the discriminating line as distinct- 
ly marked as the space between righteousness and 
unrighteousness, between purity and filth. Not like 
prismatic colors, the one gradually fading away or 
deepening in tint until it is called by another name, 
but with space between, as wide as between white and 
black, between order and confusion. 

‘‘Your world needs a faith that produces courage 
without ostentation. A courage equal to any task, to 
any emergency. A courage that will never trail the 
colors of your great King. A courage that will not 
frame apology and seek excuse to quit duty, because 
a whisper is heard: ‘ There is no gold in it.’ A cour- 
age that gives one the mastery of himself, that over- 
comes temptation, that is always on guard; that 
makes a man a walking vocabulary of the statutes 
and judgments of your great King, his conduct a 
commentary of righteousness, and his life an epistle 
wise, discreet, instructive, and worthy to be read. A 


118 


ERUDIA. 


courage that makes a man’s life an open book of right- 
eousness, speaking every where the lessons of wisdom; 
that makes his life like a tree planted by the rivers of 
water, blooming and bearing fruit every month in the 
year; a courage in battle that makes the sound of the 
soldier’s armor like the oratory of the skies. 

Abeaham’s Faith. 

“Orphanos, the faith your world needs is such as 
is illustrated in the life and character of Abraham, 
the early pattern for all ages. Your book contains a 
sufficiency of his biography. Will you read some 
paragraphs of his confidence in God?” 

Orphanos. “ ‘And it came to pass after these things, 
that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, 
Abraham: and he said. Behold, here I am. And he 
said. Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom 
thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; 
and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of 
the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abra- 
ham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his 
ass, and took two of his young men with him, and 
Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt-offer- 
ing, and rose up, and went unto the place of which 
God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham 
lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And 
Abraham said unto his young men. Abide ye here 
with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and 


ERUDIA. 


119 


worship, and come again to yon. And Abraham 
took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon 
Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a 
knife; and they went both of them together. And 
Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My fa- 
ther: and he said. Here am I, my son. And he said. 
Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb 
for a burnt-offering? And Abraham said. My son, 
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering: 
so they went both of them together. And they came 
to the place which God had told him of; and Abra- 
ham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order; 
and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar 
upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his 
hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the 
Angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and 
said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said. Here am I. 
And he said. Lay not thine hand upon the lad, nei- 
ther do thou any thing unto him: for now I know 
that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not with- 
held thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abra- 
ham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold be- 
hind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns: 
and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered 
him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.’ ” 
Eriidia. “Your race have not the confidence in the 
Lord God illustrated in the life and character of 
Abraham. Your race in their long history have 


120 


ERUDIA. 


scarcely duplicated this man in faith and obedience. 
He was a man with faith without a doubt. He 
walked before God like a growing vine nourished by 
timely showers. He indulged only such thoughts as 
nourished and cultivated his faith and confidence in 
God. Wherever he went he was a great power among 
men. His faith in God gave him great honesty of 
life, and nobility of character, and impressive infiu- 
ence. The respectability growing out of his faith 
made him an infiuential and conquering prince in 
the land of strangers. 

The Scene at Mount Moriah. 

“Orphanos, that was a beautiful act in Abraham 
at Mount Moriah. Without asking the reason, with- 
out attempting evasion, without murmuring, he drew 
the knife to slay his son, his only son, whom he loved; 
and had he not heard the forbidding voice of the 
watching angel hidden away in the clouds he would 
have driven the knife to the heart of the lad, who was 
flesh of his flesh, and who was loved with the full 
love of a morally cultivated and pious father. In an- 
other moment he would have witnessed the dying trag- 
edy, the growing pallor of the cheeks, and heard the 
parting moan disturbed only by the sound of trick- 
ling blood. 

“ Orphanos, it looks unnatural to you, but it was the 
act of great faith. It was a peculiar demand for a 


ERUDIA, 


121 


trial of faith. Nothing could put it to a deeper test. 
It is the great lesson for your world. It is right that 
your world should have it. The demand and the act 
were consistent with the authority of the times. 

“A well-regulated wheel does its work well in ma- 
chinery organized for a purpose. Abraham as a 
wheel in the organized agency of God performed his 
part well. He could righteously debate with men in 
the affairs that concerned him and them, because he 
was the peer of any, and had equal rights with them. 
He could with impunity obey or disobey. In their 
demands he had free volition. But he did not so re- 
gard when God spoke to him. He believed God. 
He acted under the confidence that He would do 
right, meant all things for good, and would take care 
of both himself and Isaac. Although the natural 
looked all darkness, he believed the miraculous that 
grows out of God’s providence would enable him to 
return Isaac to Sarah alive and well, only with the 
marks of the world’s most renowned faith stamped 
upon him. 

“This was a wonderful faith, the strongest, but 
perhaps not the most heroic illustrated in the char-^ 
acter of this great man. It holds simply the relation 
of a part to the wdiole. The faith of a three days’ 
journey, and its culmination which enacted the scene 
on Mount Moriah is a short period when compared 
with the unwavering faith of his long and eventful 


122 


ERUDIA. 


life. If the three days’ journey and the tragedy on 
Moriah were all that is told of Abraham’s faith, the 
most beautiful part would be unrecorded. 

“It would be easier for some one of your world 
under a favoring star to duplicate the faith like unto 
the tragedy on Mount Moriah than under changing 
events, and through the trials of a varied and long 
life, to duplicate the steady, ever deepening faith of 
Abraham from Ur of Chaldea to Machpelah. 

“Abraham’s faith was capable of the act on Mount 
Moriah from first to last. Herein lies its most at- 
tractive beauty. It was in itself never any thing but 
a beautiful stem and leaf, and Mount Moriah showed 
one of its budding flowers with tint most pleasing 
and fragrance most sweet. His faith had the same 
weight morning and evening. It was always ready, 
and needed not cultivation to meet an emergency. 

“ Orphanos, your world ought to rejoice that it ever 
had such a citizen. His life and character should be 
read and studied by all men, his virtues emulated, 
and his confidence in the Lord God attained. When 
this is done you will have a beautiful and happy 
world.” 

Advantages Now above Former Times. 

Orphanos. “But, Erudia, God talked personally 
and face to face with Abraham. Did he not have ad- 
vantages over men now? Did not this circumstance 


ERUDIA, 


123 


help him to strong faith more than men are and can 
be helped now? AVould not men now be better and 
have stronger faith with such communion with God? ” 

hrudia, “No, no, Orphanos, many of your world 
have such an opinion. On the contrary, the advan- 
tages are in favor of your age and generation. The 
circumstances accompanying the divine communica- 
tions in the ages that they were given have always 
been of a character and nature that tried the faith of 
the people to whom they were given. Considering 
their cultivation, superstition, and indeed all the dis- 
advantages under which they labored, and which 
tended to shake their faith, their ability for strong 
and steady faith was not so good as now in your 
world. 

“The magicians satisfied the Egyptians that they 
were greater and had more power than Moses. The 
Israelites believed in other gods in view of the 
smoke, and in hearing of the thunder on the mount 
where God was giving the law. The Jews did not 
believe in your King, though they saw his miracles. 
It was a conceit of the Jews even while they were 
falsely accusing, condemning, and murdering your 
Master, that if they had lived in the days of their 
fathers they would have shown more wisdom and 
better piety. 

“A great truth was stated by your Master when he 
said: ‘They have Moses and the prophets. . . . 


124 


ERUDJA. 


If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither 
will they be persuaded, though one rose from the 
dead.’ The poor unfortunate rich man to whom this 
statement was made, though now in hell, was under 
the delusion that other revealed signs and wonders 
would strengthen the faith of men and make them 
better. But Abraham from the land of wisdom told 
him that his thought was vain, and existing conditions 
best adapted to the interests of humanity. I tell you, 
Orphanos, that Moses and the prophets, and Christ 
and the apostles are all that is necessary in evidence 
for the establishment of faith.” 

Orphanos, “But, Erudia, there are infidels in our 
world whose speeches and writings make against our 
faith and against our progress.” 

Erudia. “ O Orphanos, what is a man worth unless 
he is tried and proves himself. Do you wish to have 
your world transferred into a paradise exempt from 
temptation and trial? Are you not forgetting what 
you are? Do you wish to be without a battle? This 
cannot be yet awhile. Rather desire an heroic age; 
an age in which through temptation you may prove 
to the Lord God that you can withstand and have in- 
deed moral worth in your souls. 

“ Your world is tried by existing things. Did they 
not exist, others must of necessity, and ample to put 
every soul to the test. Infidels can do you no harm 
if you fight the battle with undaunted spirit and the 


ERUDIA. 


125 


courage tliat comes of faith. Do as Abraham — eat 
the bread of faith, drink the water of faith, gather 
the folds of faith around you, speak the words of 
faith, carry the weapons of faith, fight the battle of 
faith, live the life of faith, conquer the enemy with 
faith — and you will finally get the passport into a 
country where no infidels trouble, and where trials 
are over. Farewell.” 


CHHPTeR IX. 


(( ^OOD-EVENING, Orphanos,” said Erudia, as 
they met again. “ I have brought along a specu^ 
lum into which I wish you to look.” Whereupon she 
placed it in a glittering tube and gave it to Orphanos. 
He looked for some time, interluding now and then a 
low, moaning grunt, indicating his surprise and won- 
der. Several times he took the speculum down from 
his eyes and looked toward Erudia. 

Finally he- gave the speculum back to Erudia as 
though satisfied, and looked at her with that surprise 
and wonder which suggest inquiry or readiness to 
hear the explanation. But not so yet, for Erudia 
said: “ Orphanos, what have you seen?” 

Orphanos. “O Erudia, I believe the speculum 
opened to my vision a view of somre other world. At 
least I have never seen the like, nor have I heard the 
like on these mundane shores. But you have already 
in former lessons impressed me that while this little 
world of ours is full of interest, yet it is very limited 
in its variety and illustrative ability when compared 
with the vast universe; with all of which you, by 
your long experience, study, gifts, and progress, have 

become so familiar. You seem to have such aptness 

( 126 ) 


EliUDIA. 


127 


in calling np any part of the universe in illustration 
of great truths and impressive lessons! O how it 
seems to me I would enjoy traveling with you among 
the worlds, and making note of the various stages of 
improvement among the races! ” 

“ Orphanos, Orphanos,” said Erudia, impressively, 
“ you are forgetting yourself. Cease your imagina- 
tion about personal pleasure, and no longer indulge 
in eulogy on my life and character. If the age ever 
comes for these things, it is not now. Think of the 
condition of your world, Orphanos, what it needs, and 
what it must be to be happy. That is the business 
in hand now. 

“ Orphanos, clip the wings of your imagination a 
little, draw down the thought of personal pleasure, 
and be sober to-night, as heretofore. Work while it 
is day, and sacrifice your ease, your inclination, your 
life, if necessary, for the moral development and hap- 
piness of your race. Now, Orphanos, I repeat, will 
you tell me what you saw through the speculum! ” 

“ O Erudia, ’’said Orphanos, “ I mean well, but I am 
weak. Please accept my promise of amends. I saw 
some other world and a very strange people. They did 
not look like any of the people of this world, yet they 
^ seemed to be intelligent. The most remarkable phe- 
nomenon was the prodigious length of their tongues. 
Nor were their tongues all alike. Some had beauti- 
ful cle^m tongues; others had black tongues besmeared 


128 


ERRDIA. 


with a loathsome slime, and seemed to be the most 
degraded and most departed from what they once 
were or from what they might have been. 

“ Those with the black tongues used them freely 
and fearfully, and seemingly could thrust them out a 
long way. They seemed to be very much feared by 
the white-tongued, but some more than others. Some 
were dreadfully feared, as I judge, by the hiding 
away as they were seen coming. 

“ Tongues seemed to be the great trouble and curse 
of that world; not the white and apparently beautiful 
ones so much, but the black tongues that were covered 
wdth a loathsome slime. All seemed inclined to 
touch each other with their tongues as a kind of sal- 
utation or pleasure; only it was this way: the white- 
tongued would touch or salute only the people with 
the white tongues, but the black-tongued would touch 
with their tongues any they could find, but more es- 
pecially were they fond of touching the people with 
white tongues. In order to do this they made many 
a hard race, but the white-tongued were generally 
the fleetest of foot and could when on guard always 
save themselves from the loathsome contamination 
and disgrace that followed. 

“ There seemed to be a congenial feeling of love and 
friendship among those with the white tongues, and 
they fondly loved the touch of each other with their 
tongues. There was a fellowship among those with 


ERUDIA. 


129 


black tongues, but it was not so close and genial as 
among the others; nor were they well pleased with 
the touching of each other. 

“There seemed to be running as for dear life in 
many places, those with white tongues running from 
those with black tongues. Sometimes one with a 
white tongue was overtaken, but this was not often 
done, because the white-tongued, fortunate for them, 
were much the fleetest. When overtaken the black- 
tongued did not always touch them, for they enjoyed 
very much the touch of the white tongue, and would 
promise to leave if the white-tongued would touch 
them; this the white-tongued would do through 
choice, because it saved them from the loathsome 
slime. 

“ But I saw a fearful combat growing out of an in- 
stance of this kind. In it the white-tongued was all 
contaminated and besmeared with slime, and the 
black-tongued was left lying on the ground. The 
battle was waged by the one with a white tongue be- 
cause the one with a black tongue did not keep his 
promise. Nobody seemed to care much, and the last 
I saw the one with a black tongue was still lying on 
the ground, and the one with a white tongue was down 
by a river washing himself. 

“ I noticed that all the little ones had white tongues, 
but in some instances the tongues began to change 
black at a very early age. As a rule the children of 
9 


130 


ERVDIA. 


those with black tongues gradually changed the color 
of their tongues to black; some earlier and some later. 
It was very seldom that a child of the white-tongued 
changed to black. These things I could learn by 
looking at all ages and conditions of tongues. Even 
the little fellows ran races to use their tongues. 

“ I could tell you much more I saw in this remark- 
able world, and of the habits of these strange people. 
These, Erudia, are only a small part of what I saw 
through your speculum, for the view was like the pan- 
orama of this whole world and strange people.” 

The Explanation. 

Erudia. “You have seen, Orphanos, a great natu- 
ral truth in the universe. That w^orld is greatly af- 
flicted, as you will readily admit ; and the signs of its 
affliction are plainly visible in the physical condition 
of the people, and especially in the unnatural condi- 
tion of their tongues, and a nature to apply them to 
strange and unnatural use. You saw a manifestation 
of great physical trouble, a world in which the tongue 
was especially cursed and the body made to suffer on 
account of it. 

“ I could tell you many things of the history of 
that world, and how it grew into its present condi- 
tion. It was not peopled from a single pair as is the 
case with your world; for it is a large world, many 
times larger than your world; its diameter is even much 


ERUDIA. 


131 


more than the circumference of your little world. 
There were many created by the Lord God, as a begin- 
ning of the population of this world, and placed in 
different parts unknown to each other, but all under 
law. In course of time population increased, and ter- 
ritory was extended until they were brought in con- 
tact with others in their various stages of improve- 
ment and degradation. One precept of the law under 
which they all were created was as follows: ‘Thou 
shall not use thy tongue offensively against any of 
thy race to shake their good standing or impair their 
happiness; for whosoever doeth this wickedness the 
Lord God will change his nature, lengthen and 
blacken his tongue, and spread it over with foul mu- 
cus.’ 

“ Orphanos, the people of this world of which you 
got a glimpse have about all violated in some degree 
this precept of the law given them. They all, as you 
observed, had tongues unnaturally long. But length 
is the lightest penalty, black is severer, and covering 
with a foul slime is the extremest penalty, so far as it 
relates simply to the tongue. Of course their nat- 
ures are more or less seriously affected. 

Comparison with Our World. 

“Now, Orphanos, while your sympathy runs out in 
pity for the white-tongued of that world and in hate 
for the black-tongued, yet you must know that your 


132 


ERUDIA. 


world is near akin to that which yon have seen. True, 
the natural tongue of your world is not affected in 
length and color through transgression, but the 
tongues of the people of your world are not innocent, 
although they are not long and black, 

“A tongue need not be long, reaching far like the 
tongues of the people of the world you saw, in order 
to produce the effect of pleasure or pain. They need 
not be smeared with a loathsome slime polluting to 
the touch in order to be hated. A being in your 
world may have a very bad tongue, a very wicked 
tongue, and yet physically exhibit no signs of un- 
heathfulness or disgust. 

“An evil always comes of transgression, it matters 
not where-away the world may be that holds the 
transgressor. Transgression and penalty are always 
graded by the law given for the government of creat- 
ed intelligences. Laws and penalties are not alto- 
gether the same in all the worlds. The divine Wis- 
dom grades the law and penalty" according to the 
character of the created. 

“ Should your world know the character of the cre- 
ated intelligences of the universe — in some the lapsed, 
and in others the improved condition — and add the 
various creature-forms of intelligences other than 
that of man, and of which he can have no concep- 
tion, wonder such as never was before would seize 
upon mortal minds. 


ERUDIA. 


133 


The Damage the Tongue Has Brought to the 
Universe. 

“ Should your world once see the damage and evil 
that has befallen the universe through the use of the 
tongue, the people would almost believe the universe 
would have run better and been much happier if cre- 
ated intelligences had never been given a tongue. It 
is not necessary that the tongue should be physically 
long in any of the worlds. The tongue makes a 
sound and may be heard afar, or if not afar, some- 
body is always ready and willing to stroke the sound 
on its way. It never fails to fill its mission, and even 
more, rattle about to the annoyance of people who 
love peace. 

‘‘ Orphanos, the tongue in your world is a power- 
ful weapon. It kills and it makes alive. It is the 
thunder-storm and the clear sky. It is virtue and 
iniquity. A kind word is sunshine. An unkind 
speech turns a clear meridian sky into the dark 
gloominess of a starless night. The tongue of your 
would is much in the way of progressive happiness. 
It must be used; indeed, cannot be dispensed with in 
the spirit of reform and moral progression. It must 
be tamed, that is all, it must be tamed. 

“Orphanos, what does your book say of the un- 
tamableness of the tongue of your world?” 

Orphanos, “‘Behold, we put bits in the horses’, 
mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn 


134 


ERUDIA. 


about their whole body. Behold also the ships, 
which though they be so great, and are driven of 
fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very 
small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. 
Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth 
great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire 
kindleth ! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniq- 
uity: so is the tongue among our members, that it 
defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course 
of nature; and is set on fire of hell. For every kind 
of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things 
in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of man- 
kind: but the tongue can no man tame; it is an un- 
ruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we 
God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, 
wdiich are made after the similitude of God. Out of 
the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. 
My brethren, these things ought not so to be.’ ” 
Erudia, “No, Orphanos, they ought not so to be in 
a beautiful world like yours. In a world so pleasant; 
having a brief, but not too brief exchange of day and 
night; with such exchange of seasons in the habit- 
able part — neither too long nor too short — as the 
passing away of the one and the coming in of the 
other always make the people feel happier; with 
such beautiful green carpets on pasture land and 
meadow in spring, its fat resting herds in summer, 
the ripened fruits and grain in autumn, and the old 


ERUDIA, 


135 


family circle around the bright, blazing fires of win- 
ter — all say that these things ought not so to be. All 
nature smiles too lovely, and man cannot afford to 
lose the happiness which is wasted by the existence 
of these things. 

“ While the things around, the flowers and fruits, 
the limpid waters, the happy caroling of the birds, 
the beautiful sky, and timely shower, all bespeak a 
happy world, man cannot afford, without feeling his 
criminality, to break the peace and ruin the happi- 
ness with improper use of his untamed tongue. 

“ O that men everywhere would chime in with the 
rhythm of nature, and by a right use of their tongues 
make the low discordant song of human happiness 
rise into an anthem more spirited than the morning 
notes of the birds, and into a chorus of most beauti- 
ful symphonism! 

“You know, Orphanos, what your race can do un- 
der grace. You know what they have accomplished 
in a material sense and in a very brief time; how the 
forests have been cleared away and the plains made 
productive; the rivers bridged, and the mountains 
either tunneled or made low to subserve the tempo- 
ral interests of man. But, under the present man- 
agement and present progression, is the man of your 
world the happier for all that? 

“The man of your world is diseased, Orphanos, 
and your great book explains the problem. The dis- 


136 


ERUDIA. 


ease is not only in the tongue, but it is through and 
through the man. ‘ These things ought not so to be,’ 
yet they will be until under the rule of your book the 
man through grace is subdued, and holds with a firm 
grip the reins of self-government. A breaking out 
on the finger that comes of a disease in the body can- 
not be cured except by curing the body. Let the 
whole man then be healed under the remedy of the 
law of your book, and ‘these things’ will not be; the 
tongue will be . tamed, or at least will be put in a 
school where it will receive such training that your 
world will have a better chance for happiness.” 

Erudia Corrects the Weakness of Orphanos. 

Orphanos. “O that my race had no tongue! A 
thing so full of deceit deserves not to exist. It is a 
little member, but can very soon tear away the dams 
that have penned up and restrained evil, and flood 
the country with confusion in a day. It produces hate, 
variance, bloodshed, and the deepest sorrow. Hap- 
py would be the race of man if they had no tongue.” 

Erudia. “ Be not too hasty in your speech and your 
conclusions, Orphanos. You must remember that 
the creation of the respective worlds and their phys- 
ical condition imply something of the physical nature 
and character of the creatures which were afterward 
made. In the Lord God is the law of adaptation. 
You have never heard of creatures being made and 


ERUDIA. 


137 


then held in waiting for the creation of a world for 
their habitation. The worlds are first made and then 
the creatures that inhabit them. In the physical 
aspect of the bodies of the creatures the physical 
condition of the world in which they are to dwell is 
considered. The muscle and bone frames of the 
creatures of your world enable them to overcome the 
gravitating force without distress. Yet there are 
worlds of such gravitating forces that the creatures 
of your world placed upon them would be helpless. 
All things rightly understood do reflect the intelli- 
gence and wisdom of the Creator. 

“ The tongue is a necessity in your world, even if 
viewed in no other light than that of producing 
sounds. All worlds have not the same medium of 
conveying their thoughts or of making their music. 
But in the worlds physical beings inhabit, and hav- 
ing an atmosphere like your own, thought as a rule 
is conveyed by sound, and the medium of expression 
is the tongue. 

“Your world is not expected to be always as it is 
now. There is too much love for it, too much ex- 
penditure in its behalf, too much grace, too much 
latent but rising good in man to reasonably expect it 
always to so remain. Were it not for the hope man 
has for a coming better day, he could not by rea- 
son justify its continuation. Were it not that the 
Lord God sees through the problem, and the coming 


138 


ERUDIA. 


better day, liis nature would not allow him to con- 
tinue it. 

“ The tongue was given to man in the day of his 
innocence and piety. It was given him under a gen- 
eral law of nature and adaptation even as the Lord 
God hath appointed. And the Lord God made it the 
medium of oral communication. When your world 
is developed through the gracious means supplied 
into a righteousness and purity similar to that man 
had by creation, with a knowledge far superior, and 
with a long history that will uncover to his eyes his 
mistakes and the leanness of his life without the 
light that comes down from above, the tongue then 
will, in oral communication, and in the melody and 
symphony springing from it, show the beauty of its 
creation, and reflect the wisdom and knowledge of 
the Creator in making it a means of oral communica- 
tion between man and man. 

“ Your race in their present stage of moral reform 
and in their strides toward ultimate triumph should 
open their eyes and see what an unruly member the 
tongue is; that it is still like an untamed wild-beast; 
that its roving habit and inconsiderate speech are at 
the foundation of much of the wretchedness of your 
world; that its ungoverned expressions are the great- 
est hinderances to right progression ; and that the on- 
ward march toward the goal of general happiness 
and peace can be vastly quickened if the race of man 


ERUDIA. 


139 


will labor to tame their tongues and utter only con- 
siderate speech.” 

Oephanos Convinced. 

OrpJianos. “ O Erudia, I see what our world is and 
what it might shortly be, if the people would use only 
equal diligence in moral improvement that they do 
for mace rial development, or that which comes of the 
spirit of ostentation. I know that the tongue can be 
far better used, and I fondly look for a great improve- 
ment in its use through your visit to our planet. 

“ But, Erudia, I beg of you not to think I am fool- 
ish, or that I am indifferent about the use of your 
precious time; but tell me, are there really such 
worlds in the universe as you show me? Are there 
really intelligent creatures with such tongues as 
those you have shown me? And where-away can 
such a world be? Is the orb of it visible to the 
human eye? or if not, have we a speculum that can 
open it to view? Or if not, will the time ever 
come that we shall ever be able to see its place in the 
blue concave that overarches and encompasses our 
world?” 

Erudia. “Your inquiries, Orphanos, reflect two 
features in the nature and character of your race. 
One is a hungering and thirsting for the knowledge 
which is hard to find, and which, may be, is impossi- 
ble; the other shows that your world is far beneath 


140 


ERUDIA. 


what it ought to be in the knowledge of the things of 
the universe. Your race, like many of the intelligent 
races of the universe, look through a glass darkly. 
The Lord God has given you a revelation of himself, 
and a law to govern human life. Attention to this is 
the great central business of your world. 

“A growth on this line will make your world wiser, 
better, and happier. It is the right line of progress. 
It would make against the moral development of your 
race to have a too extensive knowledge of the universe 
and the things and the condition of things it contains. 
Too many things to learn and think about in a short 
life would leave but little time for the Lord God and 
worship. 

“ Orphanos, is it unreasonable that the Lord God 
has given form to intelligences in the universe differ- 
ent from your world? Is he without resources? And 
has he not even filled your world with a variety of 
forms? May there not be physical forms in the uni- 
verse even more dignified than man? 

“The universe is filled with wonder and mystery, 
and the highest archangel is far from the end of 
that knowledge and mystery. Let your world attend 
to the business now in hand, and under right pro- 
gression, gradually and fast enough, will abundant 
light break on the understanding. This, I might as 
well say to you, is the divine law of things, though 
your world is already in possession of the great fact. - 


ERUDIA. 


141 


‘‘Under right progression there may be allowed 
yonr race at the proper stage an invention that will 
bring to view the dwellers of the worlds, and their 
employments. Orphanos, would you wonder should 
they first look up and learn the facts of your world? 

“ Orphanos, light is ahead for your world. Could 
you but see the glistening spires at the end of the 
journey, and hear now the words of encouragement 
which at proper stages will fill the air with music, 
your soul would be filled with meekness, your heart 
with praise, and your mind with admiration.” 


CHAPTER X. 


^ .C)HEN Orphanos met Erudia again she gave him 
a little book and asked him if he knew it. He 
looked at the title, and said: “ I do not know the book, 
but it is a catalogue of the names of my race who 
have kept the golden rule.” Then he tried to open 
the book, but could not. He desired very much to 
see the list of names. He asked Erudia to open the 
book for him, and let him see the names, but she 
would not. 

Erudia. “The history of your race is more fairly 
written than by the scribes of your world. Some of 
the most beautiful biographies are of persons who 
were never noticed by the scribes of your world, and 
whose names are now unknown to your race. This 
little book contains about seventy thousand names of 
beautiful history. Nor are they all of Christian lands, 
but a fair proportion are of heathen countries. It 
matters not where the life was lived, or what measure 
of light shone upon the judgment and conscience, it 
was a beautiful life that always did to others as they 
desired others to do unto them. That person’s name 
is in this little book. No, Orphanos, it is too sacred; 

mortal eyes cannot be permitted to see and read the 
( 142 ) 


ERUDIA. 


143 


names. It belongs to the archives not of yonr 
world. 

It matters not where in the universe intelligences 
are found, if they do to others as they would others 
should do to them, they exhibit the highest type of 
practical virtue, and will never go unrewarded. The 
divine Eye is upon them, and the divine Mind smiles 
approval. No intelligence can do more in his practi- 
cal life; it shows the love of others as deep as the 
love of self; and if they love others as they love them- 
selves, much more do they love the Lord God. 

“ Though the virtuous thought was in your world be- 
fore your Divine Master said ‘All things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to 
them,’ yet this divine approval and divine freshness 
of thought, together with making it a part of the 
woof in his system of doctrine, causes the members 
of your race to look upon such virtue with an atten- 
tion and interest never before awakened. The wise 
and thoughtful of your world know they are not what 
they ought to be unless in practical life they do unto 
others as they would be done by. They know that 
happiness is destroyed, or at least does not exist where 
it might be, both in the wrong-doer and in its effect 
on others. Opportunities and happiness are lost to 
others because of the effect of the wrong-doer’s ac- 
tion, and to himself, because reflection over his folly 
and lack of courageous manhood is painful. Of 


144 


EBUDIA. 


course this does not include that class of your race 
who have made beasts of themselves and are incapa- 
ble of having their moral sensibilities aroused, but to 
only fair-minded, reasonable people. 

Hindeeances of the Golden Eule. 

“But, Orphanos, you have long been an observer 
of your race, and now I remember when I first found 
you in the walnut grove you were meditating with 
great anxiety over the moral condition of your world; 
and you well know the increase of happiness that 
would follow a complete practical observance of the 
golden rule. Will you therefore explain to me what, 
in your judgment, are the difficulties in the way, and 
which hinder a full observance of the rule by all the 
people?” 

Oiyhanos. “It is not for lack of reason, for the 
citizens of our world have this faculty in abundance. 
They are easily convinced of what is right, and know 
the right from the wrong far better than their ac- 
tions indicate. Nor is it for lack of revealed truth, 
for our world is blessed with all the beauties of di- 
vine law. It is through nature, an evil nature. As 
to how the citizens of our world came to possess such 
an evil nature I need not explain, for you are ac- 
quainted with all the details. 

“ It is very much after this manner that when the 
citizens of our world would do right evil is present. 


ERUDIA. 


145 


When the divine law says what is right, and reason 
and judgment encourage, an evil nature opposes. 
This nature is full of selfishness and is very hard to 
dominate. The love of money is prominently in the 
way of illustrating the golden rule in practical life. 
It is sad to think how inordinately money is loved in 
this age of our world’s history. It would seem that 
the divine communication and past experience are 
sufficiently potent to have changed the manners of 
the people by this time. But it is now as it always 
has been, and in some quarters apparently worse. 

“ In the trade and commerce of our world the law 
says: ‘Fair dealing; your brother and neighbor must 
live.’ But an evil nature says: ‘I want his money.’ 
And deceit, which is always to the front in striking 
a bargain, says: ‘He is trying to cheat me.’ 

“ Thus it goes. If lands are to be sold, the values 
are overestimated, productiveness magnified, and 
the worse qualities hidden. If lands are forced upon 
the market in order that the unfortunate may meet 
obligations, they are bought for as much less than 
they are worth as possible. If a horse is to be sold, 
the worse qualities are kept back. In merchandise 
the newspapers are filled with lying advertisements, 
and they are sustained by the mouths of the sales- 
men. If charity is needed, very few open their eyes 
to see it. If a moral enterprise is to be set on foot, 
if it costs dollars and cents, it is by hard drumming 
10 


146 


ERUDIA. 


that it gets a start. All this and much more that op- 
pose the golden rule through the love of money. 

“Also fashion opposes the golden rule. It gen- 
ders hate, envy, jealousy, and castes in society, even 
when no reason can be given. Where these exist 
there can be no love, and where no love exists there 
can be no practical illustrations of the golden rule.” 

Erudia. “You have spoken well, Orphanos. It is 
very lamentable that what you have said is true; and 
much besides you might have said. You are right 
when you say the members of your race are well able 
to discern between right and wrong; the judgment 
sufficiently sound, but a refractory nature that will 
not be led by it; a heart that commiserates and would 
like to help, but a nature that will not lift the hand 
of sacrifice and relief; eyes opening upon and admir- 
ing the beauty of pious law, but a nature enveloped 
in selfishness; a force in man inclining to right paths, 
beautiful life, and a happy world, yet a gravity of nat- 
ure that holds him in debasement. 

“Yes, Orphanos, I know the story that teaches 
how man acquired this nature; and it is lamentable 
that a creature of such possibilities as 'man should 
possess so confused and inconsistent a nature; that a 
world of such naturally beautiful sunshine should be 
without the correspondent moral splendor; that a 
world in which the golden rule is known, and the 
judgment acknowledging the beautiful fruition that 


EltUDIA. 


147 


would grow out of its observance, sliould for so many 
centuries lag behind certain other worlds whose op- 
portunities and advantages are not so favorable. 
Yet it is not through want of intelligence, judgment, 
or light, but through a besetting evil nature that man 
cheats himself out of that happiness which so many 
worlds enjoy, and 'which grows out of the principle of 
doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.” 

Ekudia Quotes fkom Our Great Book. 

Erudia was silent for a moment, and then in plaint- 
ive melody while looking across our world as though 
deploring its moral condition, she said : 

“‘Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who 
shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh up- 
rightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the 
truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his 
tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up 
a reproach against his neighbor. In whose eyes a 
vile person is contemned; but he honoreth them 
that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own 
hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his 
money to usury, nor taketh reward against the inno- 
cent. He that doeth these things shall never be 
moved.* 

“ ‘ Blessed is the man that walketh not in the coun- 
sel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sin- 
ners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But 


148 


ERUDIA. 


his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law 
doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be 
like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bring- 
eth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall 
not wither; and whatsoever- he doeth shall prosper.’ 

Law and Order. 

“Wherever there is light there is hope, but when 
the sun goes down there is darkness. Where there 
is no will obedience to law is perfect, for all the 
worlds revolve and fly in space without confusion. 
Where there is perfection in nature among the intel- 
ligences the law is not broken; they are one brother- 
hood, they are one body, they care for one another, 
and are happy; such are some of the worlds; such 
may be your world, Orphanos, but not until the 
golden law of uprightness shall be the practice in all 
business and commerce, and especially toward the 
poor.” 

Erudia Sees the Passing Events of Our World. 

Erudia again became silent. She rose from her 
seat and looked intently and anxiously in different 
directions across our world, and then sat down look- 
ing sad and sorrowful. 

Orphanos. “ O Erudia, I am sorry you seem to be 
in trouble. What did you see?” 

Erudia. “ I am not in trouble, Orphanos. It is but 


ERUDIA. 


149 


an expression of my sympathy for your world, and 
anxiety for good unto your race. I was for the mo- 
ment taking cognizance of the things being done by 
the members of your race. I would repeat some of 
these to you, but they would not appear at all strange, 
for indeed your world repeats them so frequently 
that they are little talked of, and are soon forgotten.” 

Orphanos. “ I know our world is too bad for its op- 
portunity, and that the too common infractions of 
law cause us to think less seriously than we ought 
about the evil things of every day. But tell what you 
saw.” 

Erudla, “ I saw things here and yonder, some near 
and some far, things being done almost without number 
that showed a great disregard for the golden rule, any 
one of which would have greatly shocked the moral 
sense of a world improved to a degree of which yours 
is capable, and such as would have stirred your world 
in sad wonder had it half-way reached the point of 
its possible improvement. 

“I saw eastward a man who had far more of this 
world’s goods than he needed, and yet much perplexed 
because he could not get a poor widow removed 
from a plat of ground that he very much coveted. I 
saw him feigning friendship, but at the same time in 
his heart planning for her much trouble, indulging 
the hope that her trouble would be his gain. 

‘‘I saw northward one lying pale and breathless, 


150 


ERUDIA. 


with much blood on his hair and neck; and I heard 
a voice say: ‘If the slayer of this man were poor, he 
would go to the gallows; but he is rich, and his 
money will save him.’ 

“I saw westward a man handing some purses to 
three others who had weapons in their hands. He 
looked very sad, and told them that his mother was a 
widow, and had given him the money to go and pay 
for a homestead. They only laughed and told him 
to pass on. 

“ I saw southward a beautiful house in flames; and 
I heard the soliloquy of a man walking away in the 
darkness, and watching every way. He said: ‘This 
is my vengeance; I reckon now he is as poor as I am.’ 

“ These, Orphanos, are some of the deeds which I 
saw now being transacted in your otherwise beautiful 
world; yet they are a very small part of them. They 
are being done in all lands; and, what is strange and 
wonderful, in Christian lands scarcely less than in 
others where light from above is not so perfect. 

“ There is a world in which the seasons are not so 
delightful as your planet affords; where they have 
no such large cities; where there are no steam loco- 
motion, nor bridged rivers, nor tunneled mountains; 
and w^here they do not talk long distances through 
electrical currents. Should the people there learn of 
the fine improvements of your planet, its beautiful 
sunshine, abundant harvests, and artistic beauty. 


ERUDIA. 


151 


they would be glad if their world could appear so 
lovely. If they could learn of your intelligence, 
strength of reason, and power of judgment, they 
would but regard your planet as a paradise in com- 
parison, and of you as a wonderful, fortunate, and 
happy race. 

“But should they be told that your race is very 
much without practical wisdom, that there is fraud 
in your world, that in honesty the people are but lit- 
tle above the herds, that they seek advantage of one 
another, that your race is envious and full of treach- 
ery, that they backbite and devour one another, that 
there is selfishness and little genuine brotherhood, 
that there is little regard for the golden rule of the 
universe, they would think of their world as a para- 
dise in comparison, and of themselves as the fortu- 
nate race. This is the judgment of wisdom. 

Happiness Is What Any Woeld Needs Most. 

“ If its fine improvements come at the sacrifice of 
happiness, it would be well that they never come. If 
the artistic progression of your world awakes envy 
aud fraud, which lead to crime and oppression, wheth- 
er in the individual or legislative council — if your ar- 
tistic progression inflames the passion for wealth, and 
cultivates the evil nature to seek by fair or unfair 
means the possessions of others — if your artistic pro- 
gression centralizes wealth, obtains labor without a 


152 


ERUDIA. 


just compensation, produces unrest and stirs revolu- 
tion, it is not the progression of the golden rule. 

‘‘No race can be unhappy where the golden rule 
is lived and illustrated in practical life. That world 
may have blight and mildew, want and suffering, dis- 
ease and death, but if the race feel themselves to be 
one body, and if one member suffer, all sympathize 
with it, and supply needed ministrations, that will be 
a happy race notwithstanding. Your world affords 
many happy illustrations of this truth.” 

Okphanos Makes Close Inquiey. 

Orphanos, “But, Erudia, is it not right that our 
world have material improvement and artistic pro- 
gression; that our race should enjoy the benefit of 
discovery and invention? Through these artistic im- 
provements shall we not attain to a higher morality 
and happiness? Are not the countries of our world 
which have most invention and the best artistic ad- 
vancement the most moral and happiest? Do they not 
most of all illustrate the beauties of the golden rule? ” 

Erudia. “ Be it far from me, Orphanos, to deceive, 
or even in any small degree denounce any good thing. 
It is right that your world should make artistic pro- 
gression; but how beautiful that progression when 
made in full conformity to the principle of the gold- 
en rule! How uncertain, how unstable is that pro- 
gression when this great rule is not observed! 


ERVDIA. 


153 


“You know, Orphanos, the record your race have 
made. How often, here and yonder, they have risen 
in material grandeur! Your wise men wonder as 
they exhume and read the record of ancient time at 
the beauty that once was, but that faded away. Ar- 
tistic improvement has no stability except as its pil- 
lars are laid in righteousness, and as it is maintained 
in honor. Neither time nor any power will tear 
away that improvement built and maintained on the 
principles of the golden rule. 

Who Aee the Happiest? 

It is not certain that the countries of your world 
which have most invention and the best artistic ad- 
vancement are the most moral and happiest. The 
same nature is there to love money, and even a great- 
er ability to oppress the weak; there is more ingenui- 
ty for cheating the laborer; indeed, there is a general 
exhibition of the same passions, and a similar cata- 
logue of sin and crime, a like disregard of the gold- 
en rule. 

“ In the countries most materially improved there 
is a higher estimation of character, but with an evil 
heart, more disguise, more tendency to secrecy, and 
far more attempted outward show of honor. Where 
the golden rule is observed there is full honor, no 
deceit, no disguise, and an irreproachable charac- 
ter. 


154 


ERUDIA. 


Man Is Teying to Eegain Some Lost Thing. 

“ Orphanos, when a member of your race has lost 
a thing of value he uses diligence to find it again. 
And more than this, there seems to be a conscious- 
ness within that something is lost. Man seems to be 
a creature continually on the hunt of something, and 
he seems scarcely to know what. What means this 
effort of your race, this labor unceasing, this struggle 
for artistic progression, this toil to beautify home, 
and to make the land they love ornate? Ifc is only a 
struggle in the material aspect of things to make the 
world look as beautiful as it did to the eyes of your 
original ancestors when amid the music of birds they 
walked the fiowery paths of Eden. The varied life of 
man has not taken from his inclination thoughts and 
efforts in the direction of the ornate and beautiful. 

“ Your race do struggle to re-instate themselves as 
they were by creation. This is right. By nature 
and inclination they are attempting to regain what 
was lost. That which spoils this beautiful labor 
and industry is selfishness, a desire to get for one’s 
self, and manifesting indifference for others. It is 
too much like a struggle, not of mutual help, but in 
which one pulls against another. 

The Valuable Thing Man Lost. 

‘‘Man has lost something of more value than the 
ornate and lovely paradise. He lost that feeling of 


ERUDIA, 


155 


brotherhood which makes one enjoy and delight in 
doing unto others as he would they should do unto 
him. If your race should only make as hard strug- 
gle to regain this lost character as they do to regain 
the material attraction of the lost paradise, the two 
parallels would show a beautiful consistency. It 
would be right judgment and the day-dawn of right 
progression. 

“ There is no prophecy that tells the end of such 
progression. In its path there is no mildew and 
blight. It is the way of peace and general happiness. 
It is the ship that rides no sea that broods a storm. 
Nor will the time ever come when the note of its fu- 
neral dirge will be heard in your world. No scribe 
will ever be found with pen in hand to write its day, 
for its night will never come.” 


CHflPTeR XI. 


r .CJHEN Erudia and Orplianos met again she was 

^ nnnsnally reticent, and looked as though her 
heart was heavy laden. The day had been warm, 
but now the cooling breeze slightly moved the tresses 
of her golden hair. She arose from her seat, and 
walked back and forth looking all the while into the 
distance meditatively, as though she saw transpiring 
events. She then broke the silence in the following 
soliloquy: 

“ There are many poor in this world, yet there is 
enough for all, and none need be in want. Some are 
poor, unavoidably poor; some are poor through 
weakness of mind and judgment; some are poor be- 
cause they know not how to be otherwise; some are 
poor because of fraud and oppression ; some are poor 
because they cannot get employment, and some be- 
cause they do not get the value of their labor; many 
are poor because of their bodily infirmity, and some 
through the decrepitude time has wrought. Some of 
the poor are widows and orphans; and some worn 
down in pious duty, and now in ‘ tattered garments 
clad,’ go round homeless and friendless, realizing 
that their evil day has come. 

( 156 ) 


ERUDIA. 


157 


“ But in this world there is plenty, and much whole- 
some food that would satisfy the hnngry is laid away 
to be eaten by weevil or mold and to rot with age. 
Much of the clothing lies on shelves to be eaten by 
moths, or hangs useless in the wardrobes of those 
who need it not until age has wasted its strength and 
time has changed its fashion. The rich have too 
much and the poor too little. Can it be that a world 
so beautifidly fair shall remain so slow in its steps of 
right progression?” 

Erudia then looked upon Orphanos, and resuming 
her seat in smiling hope said: 

I have come, Orphanos, to talk to you of the poor 
of your world to-night. I have faith in the coming 
victory that will give to every citizen of your world 
the full reward of his labor. I only hope that my 
words may cut short the time of human want and suf- 
fering. Your race have made progress; if not plain- 
ly visible in direct attentions to the poor, they are at 
least accumulating a history that will stand in evi- 
dence on their manners, will rebuke much of their fol- 
ly, and will yet demonstrate the vanity of vain con- 
ceit and selfishness. 

Man’s Vain Conceit Eebuked. 

“The progress of your race is slow. You should 
not go too fast, yet you might go faster in safety. 
But such is the nature of your race that they are loath 


158 


EBVDIA. 


to try true wisdom until they have exhausted the full 
stock of their own resources. Being created high in 
the scale of intellectual power, and by creation being 
made lords of the world, they can scarcely think oth- 
erwise than that unaided by light from above they 
can raise themselves to honor and peace and hap- 
piness. 

“Man indulges the thought that his world is 
more improved than it is. He only needs to think 
of its jail houses and penitentiaries; of its suffer- 
ing thousands and toiling millions; of its sorrow 
and pain, disease and death; of its war and crime, 
unrest and revolution, to see that his world is but 
little improved in comparison with what is bespoken 
by possibilities. He may by contrast see some im- 
provements, but there does not exist as much as 
his imagination would teach him to believe. Along 
with his thoughts he indulges a depreciated esti- 
mate of other times, a^nd an exalted opinion of the 
present. 

“ Modern times with their improvements in material 
development is not morality. Centralized wealth that 
gives employment to laborers is not attention to the 
poor. Wealth oftentimes robs the poor of their 
chance. It increases the price of lands and rents. 
The poor have a just claim. It is improved humani- 
ty that regards it. It is right progression that ad- 
ministers to it. 


EllUDIA, 


159 


Orphanos Eebuked Along With Others. 

“Orplianos, you have plenty. Do you realize the 
condition of the poor? Do your ears catch the moan- 
ing sounds that now fill the air of your beautiful 
world? No, Orphanos, you do not hear them. If 
you should, they would make you feel unhappy, and 
call loudly on you for sacrifice. You never shiver of 
wintery nights for lack of clothing; and the bright, 
blazing fire cheers your heart, and brings a gleam of 
joy to your eyes while the cold blast is raging with- 
out; but many shiver and moan for lack of these 
things. . Your thirst is always slaked and hunger 
supplied, but the poor are in want. 

“ Thousands like you have enough and to spare, but 
there are many poor for all that. Their thoughts are 
too much in their business to think of those in want. 
Their eyes are too high, and steps too lofty to see hu- 
man want and supply needed ministration. Their 
ears are trained more to catch the strains of music 
than the notes of grief and groans of sorrow. 

Manhood in Brotherhood. 

‘‘A brotherhood is beautiful. Crime may break the 
brotherhood of your race, and the outlaw may go to 
prison and the gallows, but under no law of right pro- 
gression can poverty break the brotherhood. The 
honest poor are not dogs. They have as beautiful 
image as others. Opportunity, chance, care, and rest 


160 


ERUDIA. 


would soon relieve them of the hardened palms 
and bronzed shell that have come of toil, want, and 
exposure. Many of them would look beautifully fair. 
There are eyes that see deeper into them than human 
eyes, and recognize a purity and image that gives 
them a beautiful passport with those whom your 
world knows not of. 

“Your world is full of deceitful invention. The 
members of your race are graded by the stages of their 
intelligence. This may sometimes be correct; yet a 
man is not the worse because he has lacked opportu- 
nity, or because he was born weak. Again, your race 
grades its members according to their possessions. 
When the dark ages pass from your world this law of 
corrupt manners will be sorrowfully remembered. 
Bight progression will result in the re-establishment 
of the brotherhood of your race. It will turn grief 
to joy, want into abundance, and no longer will moans 
in the vale of poverty be heard. 

“ But a man must be a man. He shall yet find the 
elements of a true manhood. He shall yet find that 
whatever distress he sees is painful to his eyes until 
he supplies the needed ministration. Orphanos, your 
race must attain to this improvement. 

The Pains That Come of Poverty. 

“To be poor and in want makes the countenance 
sad. The man who was created a king is crest-fallen 


ERUDIA. 


161 


when be feels that he is poor and is led to beg. His 
nature is ground to powder when he is made to ask 
his brother for bread, for shelter, and a place around 
his fire. His proud nature revolts at the thought of 
saying in self-dependence to his brother: ‘I am cold \ 
and hungry, and my children are crying.’ The poor 
widow could die joyfully and in peace but for the 
thought of her children, bone of her bone and fiesh of 
her flesh. 

“Hagar did not weep because she was in hunger 
and thirst, but it was for her darling boy lying under 
the bush. The poor widow in pride of character, when 
in want, keeps up appearances and hides her sorrow. 
She hides her poverty with a few thin coverings. She 
shows her best things where she meets her company. 
She sheds her tears alone. Only take away her thin 
coverings, and she blushes when another sees her un- 
veiled poverty. 

“Why this dread of poverty? Why this industry 
and diligence to keep up appearances? Why these 
blushes when poverty is unveiled? Why this shame 
and confusion when led to beg? 0 Orphanos, your 
race were not made to be so; and yet your world has 
plenty. In the right improvement of your race your 
world will not remain in this condition. In poverty 
there is a sense of disgrace established by public sen- 
timent. It is one of the inventions of your race. They 
deny it, but the widow and all the poor feel it; and 
11 


162 


ERUDIA. 


tlie bearing of your race toward them proves it. Who 
wonders, then, that it is painful to be poor, and that 
there are shame and blushes wlien i)overty is un- 
veiled?'” 

Orphanos Asks Important Questions. 

Orphanos. “But, Erudia, w'e do not see any cure 
for poverty in our world. If every one should be 
lifted out of poverty and given plenty, a portion of 
our race would soon lapse into their present condi- 
tion. It seems that there must of necessity always 
be the poor and beggars.” 

Erudia. “ Much of what you say, Orphanos, is true; 
and it will remain so indefinitely under the present 
mode of thinking, present management, and present 
manners of your race. I would be far from repre- 
senting the poor of your world as pure, or even purer 
than others. I would be far from exempting them 
from censure. Many are the causes of their own 
poverty. Many are slothful, and many again use 
but little diligence and providence. But even these 
things cannot shift responsibility, cannot lift the 
burdens of duty and acts of charity and righteous- 
ness from those who are able. 

“Your race differ much physiologically. All are 
not the same color, equal in stature, or of equal 
strength. Your world is full of variety in all the 
ways you measure the members of your race. A 


ERVDIA. 


163 


man is not to be condemned because of tlie weakness 
of his body, nor praised for his physical strength 
above another. These come to a man without per- 
sonal volition. One is made to bear with his infirmi- 
ty, and the other uses his gift to advantage. 

“Again, this variety is seen in disposition and in- 
clination as natural conditions without volition on 
the part of the individual. You are not all equally 
provident, not all equally industrious, not all of equal 
business capacity, not all blessed with equal forecast 
of judgment. This gives some advantage over others. 
It makes some rich and keeps others poor. If all 
naturally inherited equal energy and equal forecast 
of judgment, there would be less poverty, even not 
counting the difference in physical ability and men- 
tal capacity in business management. 

“ But what else ? There would be fewer rich, and 
more with enough to be .comfortable. There would 
be more competition, and this would in itself thwart 
many designs ; it would tend to keep in more general 
distribution the material wealth of your world. If 
one citizen’s chances and opportunities are improved 
by the natural weakness and sloth of others, is he 
therefore to be less kind and less charitably disposed? 
Can he not yet look upon his fellow as a brother? 
Can he not see the ways of Providence showered 
upon him? Because he is blessed shall he refuse 
to bless his neighbor 'who is in need? 


164 


ERUDIA. 


What Is True Kindness and Charity? 

“ Orphanos, your race must get in possession of all 
these facts, and then they will hasten on the road of 
right progression. Too much is your world inclined 
not to lay the proper incentives before the poor. 
They should teach them that they are in sympathy 
with them. This the poor do not discern; they do 
not discern it because it does not exist. The action 
of your world tells them too plainly that they are to 
be used as a machine to centralize wealth. It is a 
fact too grievous. Does the man with financial power 
ever sit down with the poor man and teach him les- 
sons that will raise him to comfort? He does not. 
He has no time for it. He has no inclination that 
way. He had rather use him as a machine and pay 
him for the damage of his muscle. 

“This is your world with all its beautiful things. 
This is the conduct of one man toward his fellow-man, 
of one of a brotherhood toward another of the same 
brotherhood. Is this beautiful manners in your 
beautiful world? 

“The orchard songsters hail the morning with 
notes that strain their little throats and fill the air 
with the melody of song. They rejoice at peep of 
day, and swell the anthem in melodious rhythm at the 
rising sun. But the laboring poor and the poor who 
cannot find labor rise from their couch, and their 
gloom and distress are in strange contrast with the 


ERVDIA. 


165 


singing birds, which have equal rights and equal 
ability, and one is not used for the selfish purposes 
of another. 

“Orphanos, do you wonder that the poor are in 
your world? No. The poor will be in your world 
as long as man uses his fellow-man for selfish ends: 
as long as the brotherhood of your race have unequal 
endowment; as long as the strong brother will refuse 
to take the weak brother by the hand and in kind- 
ness and charity lift him up. 

Wisdom and Charity. 

“ No, Orphanos, it is not the duty of your world to 
divide up its estate and give to the poor. That 
would be charity without reason; it would be charity 
without necessity. But your world needs to look 
after the poor otherwise than it does. To give a 
present relief is the least step of charity. To give 
employment to them is to support them, but it is 
with compensation in return, and the poor are not 
always the most i)enefited. They have souls, they 
have sensibilities, they have spirit within them ; they 
feel crushed, they feel sad, they belong to the same 
race, they are far down from the plane of their crea- 
tion, they feel their oppression, they are brothers. 

“ They more often need to be touched with sympa- 
thy than fed with bread; a sympathy that is real, en- 
couraging, and that can be appreciated. They often 


166 


ERUDIA. 


need to feel that they have brothers more than they 
need a ton of coal or a blanket thrown upon their 
shivering shoulders. Your race can afford something 
for them that cheers their hearts more than bread 
and clothing; it is genuine sympathy, kind speech, 
brotherly kindness; the acts and attentions that keep 
alive the spirit of manhood and womanhood; or if it 
is smothered through want and neglect, to revive it 
again. 

“ O Orphanos, if your race who are able will only 
impress the poor of your world that you all are broth- 
ers, and extend the treatment a brother should re- 
ceive from a brother, there would soon be far less 
of the poor in your world. They would forget their 
crushed hopes, and under the spirit of a revived man- 
hood use another diligence, more providence, and 
join their hearts in the melody of the morning song- 
sters. 

“ But if your race only give them bread when they 
are hungry, and a blanket when they are shivering, 
they get hungry again, and the J:iianket wears away; 
the same broken spirit remains, and they see no day- 
dawn for their sorrow and relief for their condition. 
When a brother falls into a pit he must be lifted out, 
and not fed and clothed in it. When he is poor and 
in want he needs present relief, must have it; but 
more, he needs the right, inalienable chance, and en- 
couragement from the hands of his brothers. 


ERUDIA. 


167 


Capital and Labor. 

“ In a true brotherhood there can exist no slavery. 
In a true brotherhood one cannot use another as cap- 
ital in speculation. When one uses another as capi- 
tal to promote selfish ends there is slavery. Slaves 
are always poor. The condition of society makes la- 
bor necessary, but honor in business does not imply 
slavery, does not imply fraud, does not imply that the 
laboring brother shall receive^less than the reward 
due on the hours of toil and wear of muscle. 

Erudia Quotes the Great Book. 

‘‘ ‘ If there come into your assembly a man with a 
gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also 
a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to 
him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him. 
Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor. 
Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: are 
ye not then partial in yourselves? ’ Orphanos, that is 
from your book, and was spoken as a rebuke to the 
followers of your Master, who always regarded the 
poor.” 

Orphanos, “As in olden time, Erudia, so it is now. 
Those who are best able to take care of themselves 
get more than their share of the attention and courte- 
sies of this world. It stands yet as a rebuke to the 
followers of the Master. Their progress in piety has 
not yet cured them of this evil in our world.” 


168 


ERUDIA. 


Erudia Concludes with Earnest Speech. 

Erudia. “ Can your world hope to be happy with 
this distinction, with these manners? Does the poor 
man feel that he is regarded as a brother as long as 
he beholds these distinctions and these discrimina- 
tions against him? Does giving him bread and a 
blanket satisfy him? The hungry dog gets a bone 
and he fondles around the friend who gave it, but- a 
dog is a dog, and a man is a man. The one is in 
his best condition, the other on the lower rounds of 
progress. The one has free territory, the other is al- 
ways on another’s domain. The one has only instinct 
and fondles around a friend; the other has inalienable 
rights ; they belong to him because he is a man. 

“He knows his brother who is able ought to re- 
gard his calamity, and not discriminate against him 
because he is poor. He feels that all are of one blood, 
and that when calamity overtakes one he should be 
helped; that when one falls he should be raised up; 
that when one drops into a pit he should be pulled out. 

“ Orphanos, your world knows its duty to the poor, 
but it is so full of feasting, so taxed with enterprising 
thought that tends to selfish ends, so full of avarice, so 
fond of pleasure and show, so apologetic and falsely 
impressed, and so disposed to personal gratification, 
that it takes but little time to cultivate that sense of 
duty. 

“ Yet your world is in a race, and struggling to be 


ERUDIA. 


169 


happy. Some make themselves poor to make your 
world beautiful and comfortable to others. Some use 
others for their personal gratification, and in the hour 
of their calamity do not hear their cry. O Orphanos, 
the road of right progression is to regard the poor. 
They have rights; they have souls; they are brothers.” 

Erudia arose and walked away, and as she receded, 
in a voice musical and growing faint in the distance, 
she said: “ ‘ I know the Lord will maintain the cause 
of the afflicted, and the rights of the poor.’ ‘He that 
oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he 
that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.’ 
‘Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord 
will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will 
preserve him and keep him alive; and he shall be 
blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver 
him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will 
strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou 
wilt make all his bed in his sickness.’ ” 




CHAPTER XII. 


^BIJDIA had left a book on her seat which Orphan- 
^ os, noticing before he left the grove, picked up and 
carried home with him. He scarcely knew whether he 
had the right to open it or not, but when he saw plain- 
ly written on the cover, “ This you may read if you 
find any pleasure in it,” he eagerly opened it when he 
arrived home, and but little did he sleep because of 
its w^onderful information. When he met Erudia 
again he gave it to her, saying: “ This is the book you 
left on your chair last evening.” 

Erudia, “Have you read it, Orphanos?” 

Orphanos, “ I have, with much interest, and I thank 


you. 


Erudia. “ No thanks are due to me, Orphanos. I 
am deserving no pay for what I am doing, or trying 
to do for your race. Thanks are a kind of educated 
courtesy in your world when there is nothing else to 
give in return. I only ask that you, as I am now try- 
ing to do, labor for the improvement of your world. 
What I do, I do in kindness, I do freely, and all 
thanks a;’e due to Him under whose watch-care and as- 
sistance I am what I am. 

“ If while roaming through the library of the uni- 


( 170 ) 



ERUDIA, 


171 


verse I gained a knowledge of your world and its con- 
dition, and there was awakened in me a deep sympa- 
thy that reached out after it, and I possessed a nature 
to come and tell you what it needs in order to secure 
right progression and the earlier happiness of all, I 
only humbly and in reverence supply the ministra- 
tion of which I am able, and satisfy the obligations I 
feel on my plane of improvement. No thanks are 
due for executing the natural inclinations of my nat- 
ure. These very manners of my life give me happi- 
ness.” 

What the Book Contained. 

Erudia. “But, Orphanos, you say you read the 
book. Tell me, then, something you saw in it.” 

Orphanos. “In the first part of it was a beautiful 
picture, as it were a great reading-room or school, 
very large. The assembly was already very large, 
many were near by and entering, and many seemed 
to be on their way. There were the young and the 
old, parents and their children. All seemed very 
anxious to get knowledge from the books. The 
children seemed to be anxiously listening or else 
asking questions. I never saw a picture that mani- 
fested such anxiety and interest.” 

Erudia. “But tell me something, Orphanos, you 
read in the book.” 

Orphanos. “It was a brief history of the moral rev- 
olutions of a v/orld, a wonderful world, a world of va- 


in 


ERUDIA. 


ried history. It was once happy; the laws that made 
it happy were few, simple, and easily understood and 
obeyed. But the people gradually grew into the be- 
lief that changes in the law would be for the better. 
In those times there were great orators, but not with 
good understanding. They deceived the people and 
induced them gradually to change the few simple 
and good laws, and finally they found themselves liv- 
ing under another code altogether. They were now 
very unhappy. They held in tradition that their 
world was once happy, and concluded that they would 
return to the laws of former times; but when the as- 
sembly of the wise met they made diligent search for 
the books of old laws, but they could not be found, 
nor were there any ancient fathers who remembered 
the laws. 

“ The Lord God suffered them to lament over their 
defeat for a long time, even thousands of years, that 
they might have time to grow happy again if possible 
without his aid. But their worldly wisdom could not 
make them genuinely happy again. There was much 
talk all these years over the lost books and the happi- 
ness and order of society that were lost with them. 

“Some still insisted that their world would finally 
grow contented and happy through worldly wisdom; 
but as the generations passed the truth of their state- 
ments was not realized. The number of such teach- 
ers became less and less, until, hopeless and in des- 


ERUDIA. 


173 


pair, they all agreed that their world could never be 
happy again until the lost books were restored. 

“In the midst of their sorrow there appeared 
among them a prophet who told of a time when the 
lost books would be restored to their world. The an- 
nunciation brought joy, gladness, and a shout. Noth- 
ing was talked of but the lost books and the time 
when they would be returned. Even little boys and 
girls who had felt the pain of an evil law inquired 
anxiously. Many prayed the prophet to make the 
time earlier. Old people who could not live to see 
the day talked consolingly to the young, and rejoiced 
in prospect of the better day. These, Erudia, are 
the things I read.” 

Erudia. “ The picture, Orphanos, is an illustration 
of the conduct of the people when the lost books were 
restored. They read them, they studied them, both the 
old and the young. They are now a happy race, and 
theirs is a happy world. The age of that world which 
showed the folly of unaided effort and exploded hopes, 
and the age of their sorrow, and grief, and stranded 
power, are lessons too impressive ever to be forgotten. 

“ That world has stated days in which they suspend 
all business and all meet, both the old and the young, 
to read and talk over the lessons of wisdom they get 
from the restored books. They also read them at 
home and teach them to their children. All their 
orators now praise the books. 


174 


ERUDIA. 


Our AVorld Contrasted with That World. 

“Your world is now in some degree like that world 
when it traveled away from the books that made its 
citizens a happy people. Your world now furnishes 
orators who would impress the people that the book 
given your race tends to make the people miserable 
rather than happy. They can never accomplish as 
much in your world as the orators did in that, but 
they nevertheless have an influence for evil. They 
stand in the way of right progression, and delay the 
time of general contentment and happiness. 

“ The interest taken in the books of that world, as 
indicated by the picture, and as plainly stated in the 
history, illustrates the interest the citizens of your 
world should take in your great book; for it is as im- 
portant to your race as their books are to them. Had 
your world as fully demonstrated the utility of your 
book as that world in its varied history demonstrated 
the utility of their books, it would be far better for 
happiness. It would close the mouths of all foolish 
orators, who in reckless spirit would ruin a world 
for temporary personal aggrandizement. Your world 
furnishes too many citizens of proud thought, vain 
conceit, thinking themselves to be something when 
they are nothing, to receive your book as that world 
receives their books. 

“Your world could not present a more beautiful 
spectacle than that presented in the picture you saw. 


ERUDIA. 


175 


It has seen enough and had experience enough, seem- 
ingly, to attach more importance to your book; but 
your race yet have too high an opinion of unaided 
human ability. Man feels the lordly principle with- 
in him, and desires to be what he was created to be, 
lord of a world. He is a proud spirit and is loath 
to confess his need of assistance. 

“ The people of your world have too little regard 
for your great book; they are too ignorant of its laws; 
they should have them more thoroughly in their 
judgments, and in warmer affection in their hearts. 
The citizens of your world are too much inclined to 
know every thing else better than the laws of your 
book. Only a few read it carefully and study it dili- 
gently. When the time comes that the people of your 
world take a similar interest in your book that the 
citizens of that world whose history you read take in 
their restored books, it will form a new epoch in your 
world’s history.” 

The Eace op Man Enigmatical. 

Orphmios. “But, Erudia, how long will that be? 
How long shall our race wait for that happy day ? ” 

Erudia. “ Your race are so enigmatical, Orphanos, 
that regular rules of calculation do not apply to them. 
They have so often run the race of right progression 
for a time; so often begun to bud, but never bloom- 
ing; so often gone full half-way in right progression. 


176 


EBUDIA. 


and then losing time and heat, hesitated and halted, 
that no created intelligence, let him be ever so wise, 
is equal to the problem. Such knowledge belongs to 
the uncreated Intelligence who has all knowledge, 
sees all results, and knows the beginning and the 
ending of all things. As he in his providence has 
made known the fact that it will come, but not in 
what span of years, the truth of it should be accepted, 
though the day be unrevealed. 

Man Not Without Agency in This Work. 

“ Man will be an agent in developing such a time. 
He is somebody, and not a cipher; he is so esteemed 
by the Lord God. By man’s agency is the only way 
consistent with the divine character to bring it for- 
ward. But the civilization that will bring it up shall 
be built upon the light that cometh down from above.* 
The manners of your race which show only a partial 
acceptance of the light will keep your world swing- 
ing backward and forward, gaining little that is per- 
manent as long as there is a sad admixture of worldly 
wisdom with that light. 

“ Seemingly your race are not yet, by far, done with 
experimenting with worldly wisdom. The proud 
thought, the haughty bearing, and the unwise conceit 
are yet deeply implanted. The civilization in order 
to the happiness of your world must be built on love. 
It is this that will give your world not only the ap- 


EBUBIA. 


177 


pearance of being happy, but will also break down 
the spirit of hate, covetousness, and fraud. This is 
the basis of a true brotherhood; it is the light that 
cometh down from above. 

“ But in order to gain this ultimatum your world 
must embrace its opportunities, seize its advantages, 
and rise up industriously into the beauteous enjoy- 
ment of its privileges. Your book can never make the 
right impression on the minds, and correct the man- 
ners of your race, or in any large sense be a means 
of improving their hearts unless it be read. This is 
the word of the Lord God to each one, and when prop- 
erly and largely read keeps the soul joined with him. 
It must be regarded as the book of your world, sec- 
ondary to none. 

“ The citizens of your world must have knowledge 
of this book, though it be at the expense of all other 
knowledge; better this by far than a knowledge of all 
else at a loss of this. They must regard it as the life 
of well-regulated society, the life of inward piety and 
uprightness. Providence has given the facilities for 
such knowledge, but the opportunities are feebly em- 
braced. The mind of the youth is decoyed to a thou- 
sand other things, and their encouragement to this is 
of small degree. 

Angels Wondee — a Satisfied Curiosity. 

“As the angels look down on your world, knowing 
12 


178 


ERUDIA. 


the providence toward it in supplying it with knowl- 
edge, they wonder at the ignorance of the people, and 
the lack of diligence in your race in gaining knowl- 
edge of your book. They wonder that so many nev- 
er gather the best grapes nor eat the best fruits. 
They wonder at the judgment and pity the hearts, 
and would feign gather up the wasting happiness. 

“ Your race are in a stage of improvement that in- 
dulge much in idle curiosity; always desiring some- 
thing, but when obtained it soon becomes old, com- 
mon, and fades out of respect. In the worlds that 
have culminated in right progression things that are 
beautiful never cease to be admired; the mind is re- 
newed with pleasure on the beholding every day. 

“I repeat, Orphanos, that your race have inclina- 
tions to see, admire, become satisfied, and then lose 
interest altogether. Your race scarcely raise their 
eyes to behold the majesty of the rolling and travel- 
ing clouds; they hardly ever look upward at night for 
one hour on the starry heavens. These carry the 
thought to God and improve the soul through medi- 
tation. Your race have grown weary at these won- 
ders, and they cease to attract. Yet the beauty and 
majesty of the traveling clouds are none the less than 
when first they formed mountain ranges in the air. 
Nor have the silvery moon and the starry heavens lost 
their sublimity. 

Your race do not admire the beautiful rainbow as 


EEUDIA. 


179 


they would were it seen only once in a life-time. This 
is the nature and habit of your race, Orphanos; the 
majestic grows less majestic to the sight, and the 
beautiful less beautiful, yet the majesty and beauty 
still remain. Your world has a wonderful book; it is 
light from above. But it is too much regarded as an 
old thing that everybody has seen lying around on the 
shelves from his infancy, with curiosity fully satisfied. 
There it lies with its majesty and beauty unobserved 
and unappreciated, even as no eye is scarcely ever 
raised to behold and admire the beauty and majesty 
of the fire-capped clouds filing in mountain ranges 
through the upper air. 

The Treasures Within. 

“But, Orphanos, however common the earth may 
look on its surface and unattractive, the purest waters 
are beneath, and the richest mines and the most pre- 
cious ores. The iron is there, the copper, the silver, and 
the gold, which have been so extensively used in giv- 
ing artistic beauty and attraction to your world. The 
earth must be opened to see its richness and its treas- 
ure. A closed book is only a shadow, a form. Let 
your great book be an open book. Let your race dig 
into its treasures of precious metals. Your race re- 
ceived your book open, but too much everywhere it 
is closed. It has been too much closed for the good 
of your world; and you are therefore far from that 


180 


ERUDIA. 


stage of improvement that might have been if your 
book had not remained so much a closed volume. 

“Does a man want to know God’s creative power, 
he has only to turn his eyes on the things around, be- 
neath, and above. Does he want to know why your 
beautiful world is in its present condition of joy and 
sorrow, health and sickness, youth and age, peace and 
war, life and death, he has only to open your book, and 
the problem, too deep for the school-men, is laid open 
to view. Does he want to know the nature and charac- 
ter of the Lord God, upon whose nature and charac- 
ter the worlds are framed, peopled and governed, he 
only has to look into your open book, and the won- 
derful and indisputable facts meet his eyes and as- 
tonish his understanding. 

“ Does he want to know the abomination of sin and 
inflexible justice, let him read the fate of the unholy 
angels, and of the head-bowed Adam and heart-brok- 
en Eve as they are driven from their paradise. Does 
he want to know of tender mercy, long-suffering, and 
love, your book is full of the explanation. Does he 
want to know why his race is capable of improvement 
while the beasts are not, and why under right progres- 
sion they may all Anally be happy, let him view the 
tragedy of the cross, and read ‘God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.’ ” 


EBUDIA. 


181 


Benefits Derived through the Book. 

“Yes, Orphanos, your great book is too much neg- 
lected. It should be an open book throughout all 
your world, and read and studied above all the books 
by all your people, at home and in their public assem- 
blies. It is at the foundation of proper habits; it is 
the car that steers in right progression. It will soft- 
en the human heart, check human folly, awaken broth- 
erly kindness, assuage covetous desire, teach man 
who is his brother, the life he should live, his respon- 
sibility, that the life man now lives is of incalculable 
importance, and that eternal felicity and eternal rep- 
robation are hinged upon it.” 

Grphanos. “I know, Erudia, that our book is not 
properly appreciated by our race; that our world would 
be far more improved and much happier if it should 
be more generally read and studied. But, Erudia, will 
a proper appreciation of our book, and the full virtue, 
honor, brotherhood, and purity growing out of it, 
make our world happy if death remain the common 
lot of all? ” 

The Virtuous Answer of Faith. 

Erudia. “Death as the common lot of all is not 
what makes your world unhappy, Orphanos. True, 
your race love the present life. This is good, and as 
it ought to be. Were it not so, your world would be 
far unhappier than it is. To be with a desire not to 


182 


ERUDIA. 


be expresses the deepest misery and distress. It is 
not certain that death will forever continue in your 
beautiful world, yet death is not incompatible with 
the happiness of your race. Much depends upon 
faith in the truth and full explanation of your book. 
It is able to make your world happy though death re- 
main. 

“ What is death in your world? With the virtuous 
it is transition, a migration, a passage through a gate, 
an exchange of worlds, a mode of improving the con- 
dition; not a destruction of life, but the fruition; not 
loss, but gain; a leaving of friends behind to join 
those who have gone before; it is the process of get- 
ting to the land of ultimate reunion where the bram- 
ble grows not, but where the flowers bloom with a 
fragrance sweet; it is passing through the gate-way 
into improved intelligence, greater privileges, higher 
usefulness, and richer enjoyment. 

“In a full understanding of your book death need 
not make your world unhappy. Your world is un- 
happy for want of improvement, for lack of faith, for 
want of sympathy that supplies the needed ministra- 
tion. It has to hand all ample means that would 
make yotir race as happy as your world is beautiful. 

“The Lord God who buried Moses, who took 
Enoch and Elijah, has supplied your world with a 
book that enables your race to dry up their tears, and 
write on the tombstones of tlie virtuous: ‘They are 


ERUDIA. 


183 


not here, but are gone into the light of a brighter 
day to enjoy the fruition of their improvement in the 
Master’s kingdom.’ ” 

Orphanos had bowed his head meditatively but not 
listlessly. He desired to ask other questions. The 
voice of Erudia had ceased. He looked up, but she 
was gone. He knew the teaching of Erudia, and be- 
lieved. Happiness comes of improvement, of virtue, 
purity, and faith. Death may give transition, an ex- 
change of worlds, but cannot make the faithful and 
virtuous unhappy. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


EPHANOS was exceedingly glad to meet Erudia 



^ again, for lie felt that lie had some unfinished 
business with this fair and wise teacher. He was 
just about to ask further questions concerning the 
things necessary to the happiness of this world, but 
Erudia spoke first and said: “Orphanos, I shall not 
be with you to-morrow evening.” 

“O Erudia,” said Orphanos, “will you really leave 
me to wonder and doubt? Are there not many other 
things wdiich you could tell me that would make our 
world happy ? Is it that you have come to dazzle my 
eyes and astonish my understanding, and then leave 
me when there is so much which I know you under- 
stand, and which is necessary to the right progress and 
happiness of my race?” 

Erudia. “Eefrain your voice, Orphanos; be com- 
posed, and do not fear; I shall meet you the next ev- 
ening, but to-morrow I shall not. My race have a 
custom which they observe for their own security, for 
their own enjoyment, and in which they delight very 
much. It is our appointed time in Avhich we cease 
our regular business and turn our thoughts to the 
Lord God and his works in admiration. We are 


C184) 


ERUDIA. 


185 


creatures. The higher our attainment the more im- 
pressed are we of the honor and praise due the Cre- 
ator. To-morrow evening will be with us a time of 
great adoration. 

Eeudia Has a Sabbath. 

“By our Sabbath we become greatly renewed and 
more impressed to walk the paths of diligence faith- 
fully. We sometimes report our work to each other 
and receive encouragement. We cannot omit the oc- 
casion; it has become a part of our nature to observe 
it. When we were on trial in ages long gone by it 
was a law enjoined upon us. In our present attain- 
ment we do by nature the things contained in the 
law. 

Ebudia Discourses on Our Sabbath. 

“ In this age of its trial, Orphanos, your world has 
a similar law. It is of the fullest importance to the 
right progression and happiness of your race. It is 
beautifully written in your book: ‘Bemember the 
Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.’ No arrangement in 
the divine economy was ever so beautiful. None 
conceivable, if observed by your race, direct the 
march of your world to so much happiness. This 
is the pivot on which the wheel of right progression 
turns. As long as your world holds to the Sabbath 
there is at least a degree of right progression in the 
faith and works of its people. 


186 


EEUDIA. 


“Omit this foundation for happiness, and as long 
as it is done your ^vorld will be in a wilderness of 
moral conclusions; nor in a cycle of time will your 
progress be scarcely discernible. Omit it, and your 
race like a pendulum will swing forth and back again 
over a present center, and may be with shorter oscil- 
lations until it stops altogether. History will repeat 
its story over and over again. There can be no stead- 
iness in advanced movement only through a living 
Sabbath. And when, should it ever be, your race get 
to the goal of general happiness they will have a liv- 
ing Sabbath with them.” 

Mixed and Confused Opinions. 

Orphanos, “But, Erudia, our race differ in opinion 
about the Sabbath. Some think there is no need of a 
Sabbath now\ Some hold to the seventh day, and 
others, perhaps the most enlightened in their views, 
hold to the first day of the week. Touching the Sab- 
bath our world is very much mixed and confused in 
its opinion.” 

Erudia. “What you say is too true of your race, 
Orphanos. They are very much mixed and confused 
in their opinions about all things that pertain to right 
progression and ultimate and general happiness. 
Individuality will assert itself, and every member of 
your race desires to be something, and labors to have 
his opinions respected. This is too much done, how- 


ERUDIA. 


187 


ever, with reference to time and not with reference to 
eternity; done too much to give a present satisfac- 
tion rather than with respect to right progression. 
It is, though awkwardly set forth, but the outcropping 
of the spirit of manhood that belongs to the lordly cre- 
ation of your race. 

“Human reason has been greatly damaged, bat ap- 
pears to be damaged really more than it is because of 
the contrary nature that has so much to do with it, 
and with which, in your world, it is so much embar- 
rassed and hampered. Eight reason is perfect, and 
presents no variety of conclusions. It is un trammeled 
and unembarrassed. The instinctive races have uni- 
form modes. Eight reason is just as perfect. Your 
race can make no rapid progress on account of the ca- 
lamity that has befallen reason, or rather on account 
of the embarrassments with which it is encompassed. 
If the evil nature, prejudices, and worldly ambition 
were stricken out of your moral reformers, there 
would not exist such contrariety of opinion. 

The One Great Question Is the Perpetuity of 
A Sabbath. 

“The great question with your race now is to hold 
on to a Sabbath. If one through his imperfect rea- 
son, through the force of education, or even through 
worldly ambition and prejudices, holds the seventh 
day, let it be so for the present. He believes in and 


188 


ERUDIA. 


maintains a Sabbath; better that by far than to be 
void of the sentiment. His help is needed in the 
present great battle for the perpetuity of a Sabbath. 
By and by it will all come right with him under right 
progression. 

“ Difference of opinion here and there about the 
day is a small thing, although it is confusion to that 
extent, and produces some embarrassment. A repu- 
diation of the Sabbath is the momentous issue with 
your race. This is the great question, the drawn line 
of battle. It is the question of light and darkness, 
hope and despair, peace and revolution. It is the is- 
sue that points to the long line of dark hills that skirt 
an unbridged and turbid stream, or to the white 
mountains in the uplands of a great brotherhood. 

The Lord God an Example. 

“ Your book will be better understood as time and 
the spirit of right progression break down the schools 
of prejudices, warm up the heart, and relieve a de- 
crepid reason of its embarrassment, and therefore 
give it a fairer chance. This will bring the day-dawn 
on the manners of the Creator as an example before 
a pious creation. He is not above rest himself; and 
though he has in hand the business of the universe, he 
finds time to rest and consider his work. When he 
did the work of your world he rested on the seventh 
day, and pronounced judgment upon his work. 


ERUDIA, 


189 


“ If in the creation of worlds— if in the creation of 
your world— at the expiration of the time of his labor 
he rested, blessed, sanctified, consecrated a day, he 
meant it a day in which no work should be done; and 
if no woik, why? It was at the end of a great labor. 
He meant it as an example for that intelligent, pious 
creation; he meant it directly for your race as a per- 
petual means of safety; through rest and pious medi- 
tations of calling up the intelligence, honor, wisdom, 
powei, nature, character, and goodness of the Creator; 
to keep in memory the demands and rightful author- 
ity he held over the creature; to remind him of the 
reward of obedience, the shame and ruin of disobedi- 
ence, and the demands and obligations for worship. 

Extent of the Law Oeiginally Given to Man. 

“The early history of your race is brief. The 
whole of the law under which they w^ere created is 
not given. Did you know it all, you would be filled 
with wonder; especially so since your race have been 
trained to believe that man w^as given a single pre- 
cept; that his life or death, happiness or wretched- 
ness, depended on that alone. Such was not the con- 
dition of affairs at your creation; such is not the 
condition of any world. In the wisdom of the Lord 
God a code is always given sufficiently general to try 
the moral worth of the creatures through all the 
paths and along all the walks of a varied life; a law 


190 


ERUDIA. 


sufficiently large for the time, and to be extended un- 
der population, business, and intercourse, as the Cre- 
ator sees right and needful. 

“Nor does the Creator give his law merely for trial 
to tempt his creatures. He gives it rather for their 
own good, for the good of their society, or that which 
remains to be formed. He gives it as a means of 
growth, as lines to be observed in pious walk, and in 
the march of improvement. Had your race never 
fallen into darkness, the full law of your creation 
would have been preserved. But you shall never 
know its chapters until you have recrossed the inev- 
itable line beneath which transgression brought you. 
Nor till then will you be able to embrace the wisdom 
and goodness of God in planting the ‘tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the gar- 
den.’ 

“ Your race were created for a purpose reaching far 
beyond all ideas of being exposed to temptation and 
trial. Temptation and trial are incidental to the 
higher thought. Your race were to be useful. In 
subordination to the will of their Creator they were 
to govern a world, and carry it even in advance of 
what they found it, until not only a little place east- 
ward in Eden, bat the whole of it should become 
paradisiacal, and with morality and piety of equal 
degree. They were under law, but not without au- 
thority. 


ERUDIA. 


191 


“ The precept that was first disobeyed is amplified, 
and as it was first violated, tends, through the inter- 
est attached to it, to eclipse all remaining law orig- 
inally given to your world. Only a few other parts 
of the law under which your race were created are 
incidentally referred to. Man by creation had labor 
to perform: to dress and to keep the garden which 
was made so beautiful for his comfort and happiness. 
He had authority over the earth. His rightful busi- 
ness was to subdue any rising power that might per- 
chance dispute his claim. 

“Had he kept all other law, but lacked diligence 
in keeping and dressing the garden, he would have 
been guilty, and soon without a paradise. Had he 
obeyed all other law, but refused to exercise his right- 
ful authority over the earth, the ‘ tree of life ’ might 
have gone into decay, and no healing balm for his 
wounds could have been found. Your book does not 
give the various penalties, but the intelligence of 
your race enables them to see at least a beginning of 
consequences. 

The Creatoe Gave Your World a Sabbath. 

“He did it because his wisdom has made morality 
and piety the foundation of progress. Man w^as cre- 
ated under law, but with delegated authority. A gov- 
ernment cannot be rightly administered without mo- 
rality in the head of authority. But God gave your 
race a Sabbath because homage is due the Creator; 


192 


ERUDIA. 


because your race was created under the law of prop- 
agandism, which would bring up the future compli- 
cations of family affinities with all their entailed fa- 
voritism; to avoid evils along the way required all 
the morality and piety that could be perpetuated 
through a holy Sabbath. 

“ The Lord God gave a Sabbath for the creature’s 
sake; to make him more useful; as a means for his 
proper development; to keep down vain deceit; to 
hold the creature in his proper place; to keep down 
swellings and self-exaltation ; he did it because all 
creatures are under the law of leaving at times their 
employment to get renewed qualification, through 
looking upon him who was before all worlds, and 
who through wisdom and power has developed the 
wonderful and mysterious universe. 

A Sabbath Necessaky Everywhere. 

‘‘A Sabbath in the purity of your world’s creation 
was necessary for its happiness. It is necessary even 
in all pure worlds. For your world to have violated 
it in the age of its purity would certainly have been 
as wicked as a lack of diligence in dressing and keep- 
ing the beautiful paradise in which man was placed, 
as base as giving up the authority with which he was 
crowned, as criminal perhaps as eating the forbidden 
fruit. If in purity a Sabbath was law, if it was neces- 
sary, how much more now necessary to your world. 


ERUDIA. 


193 


wlien it finds itself and feels itself far beneath that 
stage of piety, honor, and righteousness it ought to 
occupy, for which it is striving, and to which it must 
attain ere the bud will become the rose and spread 
its fragrance through the air. 

The Sabbath Not Merely a Civil Institution. 

“ Merely to cease from labor is not all that is meant 
by the Sabbath. Whatever relations it may bear to 
commonwealths as a civil benefaction is not the full 
or proper idea of the Sabbath; although, considered 
merely as a civil institution, it is far better that it ex- 
ist on that plane of thought than not to be at all. It 
has a bearing for good in a civil relation. This, like 
many benefits growing out of good principles, is 
more incidental than otherwise. 

“ The original institution was for a higher purpose. 
It meant to preserve man religiously pure, holy, and 
near to God. It meant to call man’s thought, unem- 
barrassed by cares, at short intervals, to the great 
central principles that would preserve his life; to 
bring up in his thoughts from time to time more 
vivid recollections of the Lord God than ordinarily 
rise in his soul when in the midst of toil. 

“The Sabbath cannot be without rest; yet your 
world can have rest without a Sabbath. It might be 
provided through commonwealths deceitfully and 

without reference to the will and command of the 
13 


194 


ERUDIA. 


Lord God. This is a possible mischief in the realm 
of a creation to -whom the Lord God has spoken, and 
for whom he has provided wisdom. 

The Kind of . Sabbath Needed. 

“ What your world needs, Orphanos, is a Sabbath as 
it was, and not as it is — a sabbath that rises above all 
thought of being merely a civil institution; that goes 
in thought beyond the lines of resting tribes into the 
fearful pages, scattered, wasted, and unread in the 
background of human life and practice, and asks: 

‘ Why is the plow still in the furrow to-day, and the 
ass at liberty on the meadow? Why have the trades- 
men closed their doors of business to-day, and no 
sound of the hammer heard?’ No, it is not enough 
to rest, for this is only the outward indication of the 
pious thought. It is but the monument full of in- 
scriptions. They instruct the understanding and 
awaken reverence. They show what the Sabbath 
was, and what it must be in your world in order to 
right progression and ultimate happiness. 

Progress Made by Using the Means. 

“The Lord God provides the means of progress, 
but he expects your world to make its own progress. 
The use of the means is progress. Only a feint can 
be made without using them; nothing is assured; the 
props are not secure; it will soon come to naught. 


EJiUDIA. 


195 


The Sabbath is the main pillar of support among the 
means of right progression. Remove this pillar, and 
progress will be unsteady and uncertain. It can only 
make a step forward to return again. The means lie 
on the vacant ground between the Creator and the 
creature. This is the ground on which they meet, 
the place where wisdom is found. The Lord God 
sees the creature take up the means of progress; he 
smiles; he* dwells in the means when they are used, 
and produces the effect. 

“Orphanos, a more beautiful scene cannot fall 
upon the vision than that of a whole community, old 
and young, faithfully observing the day set apart for 
rest, religious meditation, instruction, and worship. 
How sublime the spectacle, and into what moral 
grandeur does that world stand when all its commu- 
nities suspend business, and turn their thoughts rev- 
erently toward God! Although your race are pliable, 
and yield to evil influences too readily, with regular 
Sabbath observance they will become less pliable, more 
developed, and attain unto that character becoming a 
race of such exalted creation.” 

The Wokld Too Much Impkoved foe a Sabbath. 

Orphanos. “ But, Erudia, our world has great diffi- 
culties in the way of Sabbath observance. We have 
improvements of a character that make business nec- 
essary on the Sabbath; among these are our rail- 


196 


ERUDIA. 


ways. It appears that trains should run on Sundays 
because — ” 

Here Orphanos paused, and he seemed confused; 
for, as he looked up, he met the eyes of Erudia, and 
the look was such that he could not proceed with the 
argument he intended to make. 

Erudia saw his embarrassment, and quietly and 
complacently said: “ Orphanos, have you not other 
things you wish to say?” 

“ Nothing more, I believe,” said Orphanos. 

Erudia. “ Yes, Orphanos, the people of your world 
want quick transit from place to place. They are 
unwilling to hesitate for the Sabbath. They want 
the news, and complain of the delay of the Sabbath. 
The day is very much in the way of your race, and 
many of them would blot it from divine and civil 
statute, and call the day of its existence an unculti- 
vated and dark age. Yet they do not mean to retro- 
grade or stand still, but to go forward. Nothing 
pleases them better than progress after their own 
judgment and mode of thinking. But the progress 
that disregards the divine injunction will by and by 
become unmanageable and come to naught. 

“The railways of your world, and indeed all the 
arts of steam navigation both by land and water, 
are beautiful, and ought wonderfully to bless your 
world; but if they prove a means of destroying the 
Sabbath-day it would be better for your world if steam 


ERVDIA, 


197 


liacl never been applied as a motor power. The Sab- 
bath stands above all invention, above all business, 
and its existence is more valuable to your race than 
railways and all steam locomotion. 

“ Inventions may beautify your world and impart 
to it the spirit that quickens the pace of the people, 
yet your world may still be unhappy. They may 
give the news from every quarter as if face to face, 
but this is not what gives a world contentment. They 
may give quick transit between places of travel, but 
still your world may be anxious and restless. The 
vain rationalism of your race may look through in- 
vention for happiness, but it is only hope, hope that 
can never be realized. The pure heart that comes of 
a perpetuated Sabbath must accompany these, or 
else the designing and the strong will forever dom- 
inate the weak. Yet railways are good, and all the 
modes of steam utility and progress, and telegraphs, 
and telephones. 

‘‘ The Sabbath is at the foundation of that morality 
that promotes happiness. It is capable of making a 
world happy without the facilities of invention which 
your world enjoys. Invention is good, the Sabbath 
is better; invention adds to the ease and enjoyment of 
the few, the Sabbath of all; invention turns man’s mind 
unto gold, the Sabbath unto God; invention counts 
wealth, the Sabbath the poor; invention corrupts the 
heart, the Sabbath purifies it; railways and general 


198 


EBUDIA. 


steam navigation tend to carry your race away from 
God, the Sabbath to draw them back to him; the fast 
inventions carry people too fast to see human want, the 
Sabbath shuts off steam, calls a halt, gives the people 
time to reflect, think, and see, time to worship, and 
time to do alms. 

What Will Make a Sad Day fob This World. 

‘‘It will be a sad day when inventions kill your 
Sabbath. The inevitable is now upon you, the battle 
is waging; your world must be all rest or all work; 
there is no dividing the ground; the Lord God makes 
no compromise with man; half rest and half vrork is 
the fretful state; there can be no stop until all is 
work or all is rest; the one is man’s judgment, the 
other heaven’s wisdom. 

“ The death of the Sabbath will prove a drying up 
season to your world. Virtue will run dry; all the 
generous traits of the human character and of the hu- 
man heart will run dry. Your world may be fllled 
with railways and other inventions, but if there be 
nj Sabbath there can be no stated memory of God; 
and if no stated memory of God, a falling of church 
spires and crumbling of church walls. If there be 
no places to meet where the forces which inculcate 
piety and morality have opportunity to impart in- 
struction, there will be a decline in practical honor 
and uprightness. 


ERUDIA. 


199 


Othee Thoughts Inteewoven with Exhoetation. 

Railways or rio railways, inventions or no inven- 
tions, your world must preserve its Sabbath. It 
is the topmost principle for progress and happi- 
ness, a great means of cultivating and support- 
ing faith. In the rush of business your race 
may forget God, but the Sabbath brings back the re- 
curring thought. They may forget acts of charity 
and kindness, but this day calls them back again. 

“ Deep and costly foundations are laid for the 
progress and happiness of your world, and the means 
of correct advancement are placed in the hands of its 
people. They have the right of choice, but should 
consider the consequences. 

God’s Mode of Refoeming the Woeld. 

“ The Lord God will finally lead your world to tri- 
umph, but it will be in an age of its history when 
the people will be wise in their choice. His nature 
and character lead him to worry your world while he 
patiently bears with its folly, and from time to time 
he defeats what is wrong. But all along your world 
is making history, and the remembrance of it will 
make the follies of your race to be more impressive, 
and cause them to be less often repeated. He intends 
to convince your race that they have many wrong 
principles, and that revolutions do not always spring 
of the wickedness and folly of the people. 


200 


ERUDIA. 


“Under the worrying hand of Providence your 
world will find itself some day acknowledging hu- 
man weakness, and without a line of worldly wisdom 
to pursue in hope of human happiness unless history 
will show that it ofttimes hath been trod before, and 
the stone at the end marked with defeat. Then will 
your race gather up their skirts, and with clean 
breast begin that progress which is based in that 
morality that comes of God’s law; then with steady 
aim and firm step they will march to the table-lands 
of human happiness at last, and all the world shall 
see and know they had to carry the Sabbath along 
with them.” 


CHAPTER XIY, 


^EPHANOS went to the grove where Erudia and 
he had been meeting in the early twilight. The 
evening was beautiful, but he felt the spirit of weary 
lonesomeness creep over him. He felt to be in the 
midst of solitude. 

“ Erudia will not be here this evening,” soliloquized 
he, ‘‘ but she will be here to-morrow evening. I know 
not where she is; it matters not, for she is in the en- 
joyment of her Sabbath. Her thoughts are upon the 
Lord God who made all things, who has ordained law, 
and by that law proves the moral worth of his creat- 
ures, and brings them to high perfection and great 
usefulness. 

The Soliloquy of Okphanos. 

“ I wonder why God did not make man without law, 
in a moral condition that he could not otherwise than 
answer the purpose of his existence without liability 
to accident and moral decline. But no, this could 
never be. While the Lord God is not under law, but 
in him is the essence of all law, yet by his uncreated 
existence he is of a certain nature and character un- 
avoidable, and the work of his hand and the effect of 

( 201 ) 


202 


ERUDIA. 


liis fiat are in conformity with liis underived nature 
and character. Had lie possessed a different nature 
and character, creation might have been different, but 
with his unchanging nature it could not be otherwise 
than he has made it. 

“God is good. The plan of the worlds and the 
things contained thereon sprung of his unchanging 
nature through his wisdom and power. The system 
of law, religion, and morals given our world for its 
happiness came through wisdom by his nature. His 
nature and character will not lead him to make intel- 
ligent creatures from under law. It would be absurd. 
If one world should be made thus, then all the worlds; 
if one world is made under law, then all the worlds. 
Were his nature and character changed, creation 
would be changed to suit that changed nature; relig- 
ion and morals changed, and that which is good to- 
day might be evil to-morrow. But all this is impos- 
sible ; for the Lord God is the same yesterday, to-day, 
and evermore. 

“ There is a similarity of law for all the worlds. 
Where is Erudia? Does she not hold that this comes 
of the unchanged and unchangeable nature of the Cre- 
ator? A Sabbath for her race, for our world, for all 
the worlds. ‘ Do unto others as we would have them 
do unto us,’ for her race, for our world, for all the 
worlds. ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ 
for her race, for our world, for all the worlds. Ad- 


ERUDIA. 


203 


minister to the needy, get wisdom, get understanding, 
grow in knowledge, make progress, for her race, for 
our world, for all the worlds. 

“But Erudia showed so impressively the impor- 
tance of the Sabbath to our world. What a struggle 
to destroy it! • What a greater struggle must be made 
if necessary to perpetuate its existence. It is the 
battle for rest, for morality, for piety, for progress 
and happiness. What would our world be without a 
Sabbath? No day to leave the plow, the hammer, 
and merchandise, and turn our thoughts to God! No 
rest for the toiling millions who would pay the pen- 
alty of seven days’ labor for six days’ pay! 

« “ Men in transit say there is no time to lose for a 
Sabbath-day. Business corners say the Sabbath will 
damage our trade. Saloon men say the Sabbath robs 
us of gold. Merchants say the Sabbath must not de- 
lay our goods. The anxious say our mail must not 
be delayed by a Sabbath-day. What alarming symp- 
toms against a Sabbath! But Erudia says this world 
must be all rest or all work on the Sabbath-day. She 
sees the inevitable. 

“Is it not a temptation? Will this beautiful world 
fall into the trap set by its enemies? Will it be 
caught in the snare? Is it true that this world has 
so advanced that it cannot rest one day in seven? Is 
it indeed true, under our beautiful imiDrovements of 
which we so much boast, that this world with its 


204 


ERUDIA. 


quickened pace cannot get along without seven days’ 
labor and seven days’ business in a w^eek? 

“If our improvements and our progress rob the 
world of a Sabbath, are they good? In all serious- 
ness, is it not a proper question? Would it not be 
well for our world not to do all its thinking on pres- 
ent lines of progress? Are there not principles, now 
but little cared for, upon which the eyes should look 
and the thoughts should dwell? Had not the gates 
of perpetual boast better be closed for awhile, until 
we get time to breathe, consider, and make our reck- 
oning? 

“Blessed are they that endure temptation; yet 
there is a temptation in this world to destroy the Sat)- 
bath. It runs in the spirit of those who have more 
business than love for moral progression. Perhaps 
thousands formally observe the Sabbath but not from 
the heart. They are waiting for courage to declare 
against it. They are stepping toward the snare. 
Let the sleeping who love the day awake. Let the 
teachers of the law stir all Christendom into deeper 
piety. A perpetuated Sabbath is the safeguard to 
morals, and will preserve the artistic beauty of the 
world. 

“ But Erudia is not here to-night. She is gone to 
enjoy her Sabbath. She is not ashamed to worship. 
What words of cheer she would give to those who 
battle for the Sabbath! But she has spoken. She 


ERUDIA. 


205 


can do no more. By and by she will have finished 
her speech to our world. Her mission is beautiful. 
She spends her time in looking after the needy, and 
ill showing them the laws of right progression. 
These laws are already in our book; this she also 
tells. She sits only in emphasis on that word. As 
a world we are wonderful, yet often wrong; we are 
progressive, yet important lines are neglected; have 
made our world beautiful in art, yet many are un- 
happy. O where is Erudia to-night?” 

Orphanos here ended his soliloquy. He could say 
no more. He quietly returned home, content to wait 
until the morrow. 


CHAPTER XV. 


CI^UDIA met Orphanos at the appointed hour. 
^ She appeared much refreshed by the enjoyment 
of her Sabbath. If it may be allowed, she looked 
brighter and more beautiful; but this may have been 
the imagination of Orphanos. Any way, with him it 
was the happiest meeting. He felt the loss of the 
previous evening, and as a student seeking wisdom 
he was anxious; yet the example of Erudia keeping 
her Sabbath was beautiful, instructive, and impress- 
ive. Without delay Erudia said: 

“Orphanos, your world has tried many ways in 
search of happiness. It has tried about every con- 
ceivable form of government. It has tried anarchy 
and law, liberty and oppression, sloth and industry. 
It has played by the streams of mirth and upon the 
sunlit hills of pleasure. It has tried music and 
song, and sought it under the strong arm of the law, 
and in the license of unbridled libertinism. It has 
sought it through invention and discovery, and taste- 
fully along the paths of art, through halls and gar- 
dens down the corridors of time. But your world is 
little more content than it was long centuries ago, 
and may be regarded as little happier. 

( 206 ) 


ERUDIA. 


207 


“There is a prevailing sentiment in your world 
that your race are happier. This is a delusion. 
Your world is much improved in artistic beauty; full 
of inventions which lighten labor here, but only shift 
it and make it harder yonder. Just as many are un- 
der the yoke; as many yet sweat as in former times; 
as many have hardened muscle and tired limb; as 
many without shelter, without comfort, and without 
bread. 

What Will Bring Happiness? 

“The happiness of your race will never come of 
invention and discovery. Yet these are not to be 
despised. As the handmaidens of virtue they bring 
a good reward. The happiness of your world will 
come of virtue and not of invention; it will come of 
honor, and not of beauty; it will come of righteous- 
ness, and not of this or any other form of government. 
Your race are furnished with the means that direct 
to it. Only let the people see the light that has 
come down from above, and walk in the light, and 
the electric fires will show the beautiful fields of 
peace and happiness not far away in the distance. 

The Great Enterprise of the Nineteenth 
Century. 

“A new enterprise for happiness is in your world. 
The masses of the people have been in ignorance. 
The new enterprise is to raise the grade of general 


208 


ERVDIA. 


intelligence. This is beautiful, it is well, it is right, 
it is charity. It will give those who would have re- 
mained ignorant a better chance to gain and live. It 
raises them to the plane of the fittest, and enables 
them to enter into the competitive race with better 
heart and better cheer. But it will not exempt the 
world from labor. 

“ It requires just so much labor to run your world, 
to preserve and advance its artistic beauty. That 
labor must be performed or the improvements will 
waste and the beauty fade; if not performed by the 
descendants of the toiling millions of to-day, it must 
be by those who now enjoy the profits of that labor. 

“ Whatever may be the imagined result or fancied 
reward of general culture, the problem of labor must 
be met in the end. If in general culture there runs 
the thought that the peoples’ hands will be kept soft, 
and that it will bring a release from labor, it will, as 
in other human achievements, sow the seeds that will 
produce unexpected fruits. 

‘‘It is to be regretted that a thing so beautiful 
should not have in it higher assurances for good. 
Yet there is great good in it if the heart of the people 
is filled with righteousness. But as a mere human 
enterprise for happiness, with the thought which 
worldly wisdom made general, that the power of sci- 
ence and art given to all will destroy unrest, check 
revolution, abate vain ambition, purify the heart, and 


ERVDIA. 


209 


make people better, comes of a want of knowing what 
is really the nature of the human heart. 

Genekal Education Cannot Make Youe World 
Contented and Happy. 

“ This side switch has in a great measure carried 
the thought of your race from the main track of right 
progression. The people are inclined to make this 
primary, and the law of your great book secondary. 
The practice of your race indicates that in their faith 
there is more real virtue and coming good through 
general education than through your great book. 
They are determined to make the experiment -of gen- 
eral education. They still rely too much on human 
genius for happiness; they still regard the stock of 
human resources as unexhausted. 

“ The full expectation of general education cannot 
be realized. Time will develop the truth of this 
statement. If the heart and nature of your race re- 
main the same; if only the base of evil conceptions 
become changed; if instead of a few ambitious there 
become many; if labor loses its dignity and office 
creates respectability, general education will not do 
its expected work. It will not overthrow envy, will 
not quench the fires of lust, will not burn up hate 
and malice, will not destroy covetousness, or abate 
worldly ambition. 

“General education cannot organize the brother- 
14 


210 


ERUDIA. 


hood of man; if it cannot, dark counsel and evil 
times must remain. Just as many people must work; 
just as many will try to live witliout work, and use 
fraud unto that end. Yet through general culture 
your race will appear more refined, but it will be 
only in appearance. It will be surface work upon 
the manners, rather than deep work upon the 
heart. 

“The most common idea is that living will be 
made easier through the general education of the 
masses of the people. All that is possible, that can 
be reasonably expected, is that it will work a change 
in the relations of men. It will not decrease the 
places to be filled, nor will it make the burdens light- 
er. There will still be the hard places in life; there 
will still be use for muscle and brawny arms. If 
this citizen does not belong to this class, that citizen 
must. If education raises one man out of it, the 
wheel that exalts him turns and debases another. 
The places must all be filled, and men must occupy 
them. It is the inevitable whatever the desire, what- 
ever the hope, whatever the resulting unrest. 

The Peinting-peess as an Educatoe. 

“Orphanos, the printing-press of your world is a 
thing of mighty power. It molds public sentiment 
and public morals. It is a great educator, and yet it 
is full of worldly wisdom. It has too high opinion 


ERUDIA. 


211 


of the creature, and too much faith that worldly wis- 
dom will ultimate in human happiness. It forgets 
that the purity of your race by creation must be ap- 
proximated, if not attained, before your race have 
the qualification for righteous dominion and happi- 
ness. It forgets that the stern reality of law that 
punishes crime and produces dread and fear in the 
citizen is not the foundation of happiness, but the 
improved heart and nature, which in the midst of 
conditions speaks the charitable sentiment: ‘Let 
there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, 
and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we 
be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? 
separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt 
take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if 
thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the 
left.’ 

“The press is too much disposed to look upon 
your race as gradually improving from a low stage 
of creation, rather than as recovering ground lost by 
the shock they received through transgression. It 
eulogizes human ability, worldly wisdom, human in- 
vention and discovery, declares the world fast grow- 
ing better, yet in reporting the news gives a cata- 
logue of crimes as it was in former times; the crimes 
that come of want, envy, covetousness, ill-will, strife, 
emulations; crimes that come of a lack of pure hearts 
and the brotherhood arising therefrom. Do your 


212 


ERUDIA. 


race not in a great degree make the mistake that in- 
vention and material development is happiness ? 

What the Pbess as an Educator Might Do. 

“ If the printing-press of your world had a right 
conception of the things that make for the peace and 
happiness of your race, the march of civilization 
would add to your world something far more beauti- 
ful than its embanked rivers, tunnels, bridges, cities, 
orchards, grain-fields, and flower-gardens; something 
far more lovely than that of furnishing at every man’s 
door, for the price thereof, whatever of production is 
pleasing to the eye or the desire of the heart; some- 
thing more beautiful than art, more valuable than in- 
vention, more durable than worldly wisdom. 

“ It would add the brotherhood of your race. The 
affection brethren have for one another restrains 
wrong and suppresses crime. More of this thought 
is needed in your world. The dog in the manger 
can be excused for warding off the hungry ox from 
his food because he is a dog; the ox that will not di- 
vide the abundance with the weak because he is 
strong can be excused because he is an ox; but a 
man who will seek advantage of his brother cannot 
be excused because he is a man. 

“ In a great measure the principles conducting the 
manners and progress of your world live or die under 
the power of the printing-press. Parents give their 


ERUDIA. 


213 


children bread for which they cry. But if the chil- 
dren cry for the leaves and blossoms of the poppy, 
wise parents will not give them because they love 
their children. 

“ Orphanos, the printing-press should emulate the 
example of wise parents. It should not cater to the 
w’hims of an unwise and immoral people. If they 
ask for poison, for sentiments that corrupt, for prin- 
ciples that ruin the heart, for advice that shuts out 
the ways of righteousness, the press should not feed 
them with the food for which they ask; and if it loves 
them it will not. It should be a teacher and not a 
caterer to the whims of an untaught and corrupt 
patronage. It should know that the things living 
which corrupt should die, and that the things dead 
which make for peace and happiness should be raised 
to life. 

This Woeld Has Had Enough of Certain 
Things. 

“Your world has lived long enough, the light is 
sufficiently lustrous, and the observation and experi- 
ence of your race sufficiently abundant for them to 
plainly see the road to peace and happiness. Surely 
your world has had enough of hate, enough of jeal- 
ousy, enough of prejudice and envy, enough of fraud 
and oppression, enough of bad government, of neg- 
lect, o^ the extreme between riches and poverty, of 
blood and war. 


214 


ERVDIA, 


“Intellectuality, worldly wisdom, art culture, edu- 
cation limited or general, with, all the fashion and 
ostentation that spring of existing taste, can never 
satisfy and bring about the peace and rest of your 
world. Could they do it, there would exist at the 
present time more sure signs of the approximation. 
But the registry of the facts stands against the proof. 
Your race is to find peace, rest, order, and happiness 
through heart culture, through attention to the light 
that has come down from above, through the great 
book that was given to your race unto this end. 

The Peess May Be a Geeat Powee foe Good. 

“The sooner the printing-press gives its full in- 
dorsement of the great truth the better it will be for 
your race. The indorsement must be full and from 
the heart. It must be the indorsement like that of a 
man who feels that he is a wheel in the machinery 
that grinds out moral reform, who feels individual 
responsibility, who acts as a man of faith to wdiom 
is given a work to do, who realizes that the most ac- 
ceptable tithe paid in a human life is to work right- 
eousness. 

“ The present half-asserted indorsement is worth- 
less. The printing-press in all moral reform should 
be outspoken, positive. This is the only way it has 
ever won its battles, whether right or wron^. Full 
decision is demanded by the Lord God. He accepts 


EliUDIA, 


215 


no hand where there is no heart. It is the complete 
indorsement that awakes the people to thought. It 
is full decision in the power, in the head of influence 
that works the needed reform. The printing-press 
of y5ur world needs more righteousness; for what- 
ever its principles be victory generally attends its 
line of battle. Your race in manners and righteous- 
ness cannot rise above the moral level of the print- 
ing-press; its morality is their morality; its grandeur 
their grandeur.” 

Okphanos Again Frightened about Church and 
State. 

Orphanos. “But, Erudia, our race are in dread of a 
union of Church and State. Our history shows the 
evil of it. You surely do not mean a restoration of 
such a condition.” 

Erudia. “ By no means, Orphanos. Whatever your 
race have tried and found to be evil should forever 
remain a lesson of instruction to you. Both the Lord 
God and Csesar have governments in your world. 
Both are necessary to the happiness and peace of 
your race. It is right that Csesar should have a gov- 
ernment, but it is wrong in Cmsar to repudiate or 
even lightly regard the government of the Lord God. 
Human government may be adversely criticised be- 
cause it is human and imperfect. It is often wrong, 
and may by turning on more light be improved. But 


216 


ERUDIA. 


the divine is not to be wickedly handled. Yon know 
the law: ‘Eender unto Csesar the things that are Cae- 
sar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ Caesar’s 
government is made better by the existence of the 
Lord God’s; and especially so if Caesar has respect 
for the Lord God. 

The Pendulum Swung Too Far. 

“When the sad admixture of these two govern- 
ments, the human and the divine, resulted in evil, 
false charges were brought against the divine which 
aw^akened prejudiced thought, causing the pendulum 
to swing too far. This has delayed the day of your 
progress. The divine lost righteous appreciation; 
and had it not been divine, with a mighty arm of sup- 
port underneath, it would have been remembered only 
with hate. 

“The printing-press of your world of to-day exhib- 
its signs of that prejudice yet remaining. It does not 
appreciate the divine government as it should, nor 
even as it would had it not been that prejudice caused 
the pendulum to swing too far. The press is too ea- 
sily alarmed at signs of the admixture of the two gov- 
ernments, and stirs an unnecessary and unprogressive 
prejudice. It is unduly apprehensive. This awak- 
ens jealousy and prejudice against the divine govern- 
ment, and much evil speech against it; and checks 
that indorsement of your great book, and that utility 


EliVDIA. 


217 


of the divine government in your world necessary for 
its peace and happiness. 

Why the Invention of the Peinting-pkess Was 
Allowed by the Lord God. 

“In the order of the divine economy the printing- 
press and the resulting general intelligence have been 
allowed to your world not any more for directing the 
people to the Lord God than to gratify human desire. 
It is intended to give your race all advantages con- 
ceivable for happiness through worldly wisdom. 
Their thought is to carry your world forward unto 
final peace through human intelligence and power. 
Should the printing-press and general intelligence 
fail to answer the end of human want, your race re- 
main as discontented as in the ages past, and there 
should still exist all the germs of deceit, fraud, ill- 
will, and covetousness, there must of necessity come 
a day when there will be great hesitation in human 
thought. Men everywhere will look each other in 
the face and ask: ‘ What shall we do? ’ 

“The Lord God respects and gratifies human de- 
sire. He intends that your race shall have all world- 
ly wisdom, and shall have time to bring happiness out 
of it if they can. He understands the problem of 
your world and sees through it. He intends that 
your race shall become satisfied with worldly 
knowledge and wisdom, measure the height and 


ERUDIA. 


2ia 

depth of its power, and taste all the fruits it can 
yield. 

“He knows that the pride and vanity of your race 
must be broken before they can be shaped into great 
usefulness, and your world brought into ultimate 
peace. He intends that your race shall learn that 
there is in the realms of light immeasurable wisdom, 
of which they never dreamed; that your race shall 
finally discern the folly of their ways; and having ex- 
hausted the full stock of their ingenuity, shall ulti- 
mately see in great faith that the foundation of right 
progression and human happiness lies in the improve- 
ment of the heart, and that this can be attained only 
by a proper appreciation of the wisdom from above. 

A Part of the Printing-press in the Ways of 
Eight Progression. 

“ But, Orphanos, a small part of the press of your 
world is in the way of right progression. They in- 
dorse intelligence in all its height and depth, for 
this is good; but they do not look for general happi- 
ness to come of worldly wisdom. They regard that 
the pillars of it are laid in the morality and righteous- 
ness obtained through the light that has come doAvn 
from above. With them your great book is the light 
of their eyes and the pillow of their heads. 

“ The fight they are making would be very unequal 
only for the wisdom and j^ower of their Captain Gen- 


ERVIJIA. 


219 


eral, who will finally drive the false claim of worldly 
wisdom into the last ditch, and bring glittering and 
impressively the fact that there can be no right pro- 
gression and permanent and general rest and happi- 
ness only as it respects the morality that comes of 
righteousness. 

The Power of Love. 

“But the small minority of the printing-press of 
your world do not always act advisedly in the battle 
they are making for right progression. They some- 
times show too much of the human and too little of 
the divine spirit. Theirs should be the spirit of love. 
The battle is not theirs, but the Master’s. Their re- 
sponsibility ends with a well -spent life. They are 
agents. It is not necessary that the agents should 
hate the Master’s enemies; especially not when they 
remember that he gave himself for them, loves them, 
and means finally to teach them. The spirit of love 
does not indulge evil speech, does not behave itself 
unseemly. The spirit of love does not hate, is not 
over-anxious, has patience. 

Love Will Win the Battle. 

“The minority of the press of your world will not 
win the battle by seeking opportunities to measure 
swords; it will not be by debate. This is human 
weakness, and the odds are against it. Your great 


220 


ERUDIA. 


book does not so order. The battle will be won 
through love, in the spirit of meekness, by the hand 
of the Master. Victory will not come hurriedly — ” 

The Parable of the Tree. 

Erudia seemed not to be through with her speech, 
but Orphanos in his anxiety interluded, and said: 
“Tell me, O Erudia, how long it will be before my 
race will be happy. How long before ill-will, hate, 
fraud, and all the evils that embarrass the society of 
this world shall flee away ? ” 

Erudia. “Do you know that stately and beautiful 
tree standing on yonder hill? There clusters about 
it a history your generation know not of. It first 
came a beautiful scion, but on an evil day a stealthy 
worm entered under the bark, and the beautiful scion 
perished. But from the root came another shoot, as 
beautiful, and it grew to larger stem, but an ox with 
horns cast it down. It came again, and grew to half its 
present size, but the woodsman’s ax laid it low, and 
he burned it with fire. This is not all the history it 
has tided through in the course of many years; but 
there it stands, stately and beautiful. There exists a 
power that preserved the root and tided the life over 
evil times. 

“The roots of righteousness never die. In the 
history of your race beautiful shoots and stems meet 
with disaster, but they come again. As certainly as 


ERVDIA. 


221 


that stately tree reached at last its present stage of 
strength ^nd beauty, and stands now the protected 
admiration of the intelligent and wise, the shoots of 
righteousness will continue to rise until their strength 
will be established and their beauty admired. It will 
scarcely come in your generation, nor will the full 
fruition be in the next. It will come like the gradu- 
ally opening day, and its increase will be as the in- 
crease of the brotherhood of your race.” 


CflHPTER XVI. 


pEUDIA. “Your world, Orplianos, is about half- 
way between the worst and the best of the uni- 
verse. From your condition you may look downward 
or upward; the scale turns either way. You have 
labor and rest, strength and weakness, knowledge and 
ignorance, liberty and temptation, obedience and sin, 
sunshine and shade, light and darkness, a law of 
worldly wisdom and a law as light from above. 

“Your condition could be much worse, and would 
have been but for the divine favor shown to your 
race. Your condition could be much better, and 
would have been had your spirit of right progression 
been strong, uniform, and fervent. You have liberty 
of the will, and the choice that comes of it has placed 
your world in its present stage of improvement. Out 
of the will grows the wisdom or folly of your race. 

Things AVe Should Evade. 

“ Orplianos, you have seen flowers that are beauti- 
ful, yet evaded by the humming-bird. There was 
poison in them. You have seen fruits deceitful. 
You could not tell the poison of the flower only as 

the bird told you; nor could you tell the poisonous 

( 222 ) 


ERUDIA. 


223 


bitter of the fruit only as you saw it neglected. How 
often have your race been disappointed by the decep- 
tions things of your world! Will they never learn 
what to evade? Why do they sip so much from 
poisonous fountains along the road of right progres- 
sion ? 

“ If one learns an evil experience, why is his testi- 
mony not heard? Has not history repeated to your 
race many of their follies a thousand times? Yes, a 
thousand times, and yet the testimony is not regard- 
ed. What is the matter with your world? Why so 
much darkness still remaining? 

“ But a brighter day will yet come in your history. 
A thousand years may come and go. Is it a little 
thing? You are the people that are affected. It is 
for your thought; it is your question. But the day 
of release will come. It will break more beautifully 
in light than the ornate grandeur of political manage- 
ment, or the skilled art of worldly wisdom. 

The End of Eeudia’s Mission. 

“Orphanos, I shall meet you no other evening. I 
have other work full in hand, and the space of hours 
I have been devoting to your world will now be ap- 
plied to another. I have a hope that at least some 
good may result to your world through these inter- 
views. My labors have been blessed with good, but 
not everywhere. My sisters and I have met some 


224 


ERUDIA. 


rough countries in tlie universe. In some of these 
our visits have made an epoch in their history of 
right progression. I am encouraged. I have hope 
for your beautiful world; and trust that piety and 
morality shall soon catch up and keep pace with your 
material advancement. 

The Heart. 

“Orphanos, remember the human heart. Do not 
skip over the lesson; do not regard it lightly; be not 
skeptical. The heart is hard to understand; hard for 
man to understand, for it belongs to him, and it is not 
his nature to condemn it. It is seen and understood 
by higher intelligences; by those who have access to 
the books of the universe and have made them a 
study. These know best what is good for the worlds 
that need improvement. 

“Your race need to turn the eyes inward, and ask: 
Who am I? how was I made? what am I now? what 
need I do for improvement? do I hate or love? do I 
bear malice? do I envy? do I covet? do I refrain my 
tongue? do I walk with my eyes open upon sorrow 
and want? Am I helping to make the world better? 
will the world be better by my life? What machine, 
what vessel is this on which I find myself aboard? 
How many rising suns shall I yet see before I shall 
make my landing? What will my eyes open upon on 
the other shore? Will I feel sad, or shall I have joy? 


ERUDIA. 


225 


will the landing-place be for better or for worse? 
Will the desire as the eyes open upon the reality be 
to step ofP, or to come back and fix up life and busi- 
ness in love to God and charity toward all men? 

“ O Orphanos, these are the life questions, this the 
inevitable. Let your race read the human heart, and 
they will ask them every day. To the wise these 
questions produce no alarm; for the wise are planted 
on a sure foundation, and their feet do not slip; and 
the hills they climb are easy because the spirit is 
joyous and the hope buoyant. 

The Geeat Enemy. 

“ If your race would maintain right progression, 
they should never yield to that device of Satan that 
he does not exist. Satan in ruin and yet not without 
power reflects on the vision of your world the dizzy 
height of creation and the wonders the Lord God 
hath wrought. Your race can have no conception of 
the wonderful height in the scale of created intelli- 
gences. Satan, wonderful now, though in ruin, how 
much more wonderful must he have been before he 
met his calamity I 

“ The fact that he was suffered to enter your world 
is not a proof that he is allowed to enter any other 
world; is even not a proof that he is the only great 
enemy like unto him which the Lord God has in the 
universe; is not a proof but that there may be some- 
15 


226 


ERUDIA. 


where an enemy even stronger than he. But he is 
your enemy given you to fight and make proof of the 
steel you wear in your armor. The fact that he was 
allowed to enter your world laid the occasion for re- 
vealing his nature, character, and power unto you. 
Without an occasion your world would have failed of 
the knowledge. 

“ Had as great occasion come up in your history for 
revealing some of the princes of light who dwell on 
the highest planes of creation, it would be far more 
astonishing and a greater wonder to your world 
than that of Satan. Your race have not ability to 
apprehend the ways of the Almighty, nor to under- 
stand his great works. The greatest knowledge you 
have is to know that you do not understand. On this 
foundation stands the necessity for faith. 

“Satan as the great enemy of your world absolute- 
ly exists. This truth, grounded in the faith of your 
world, is of great utility. Unless your race know 
their enemy, how shall they know how to fight, how 
to overcome? You have an unseen friend in the Lord 
God. Is it unreasonable that you have an unseen en- 
emy? Hath not the Lord God wrought wonders? 
Have not some of the creatures of his hand gone into 
ruin from dizzy heights of intelligence and power? 
Is it unreasonable that«ome of these creatures, now in 
ruin, should attempt to overthrow the work of the 
Lord God in your world and throughout the universe? 


F.RUDIA. 


227 


One of these is your great enemy; the Lord God has 
suffered it. 

“ They hang to a hope for a better day. They look 
for it not through the Lord’s help, but by their own 
might. They are doing valiant work for themselves. 
Battle is their enjoyment. They sometimes ask for 
privileges. Despair of the divine aid has imparted 
to them ruffian courage, and they never fail to do 
with all their might. They gain some victories, and 
these keep their courage in heat and cheer their 
hearts. Many a joyous dance have they had over the 
victories they have gained in your world. 

“ It is the judgment and wisdom of the Lord God 
more than his pleasure that Satan should have access 
to your world and his fallen brothers to any others. 
The Lord understands the problem of the develop- 
ment of his creatures, and has wisely arranged for 
their trial. When they overcome their enemies 
through grace given they graduate unto qualification 
for greater usefulness. 

“ The Lord God is using Satan for the good of 
others, and had he not fallen probably races of in- 
telligences, and may be your race, would not have 
been created as it was. Satan’s fallen condition has 
opened ways in the divine nature and character for 
other classes of beings, and has given the universe 
other classes and varieties of created intelligences 
which probably under the divine wisdom would not 


228 


ERUDIA. 


otherwise have been. Does it seem unreason- 
able? 

Future Punishment. 

“Let your race take heed, Orphanos, that they do 
not forget that actual punishment awaits the defiant 
and incorrigible of your world. It is called punish- 
ment, but it may perhaps be more properly under- 
stood as a ruined moral condition into which shines 
no ray of light, from which springs no hope, out of 
which can grow no improvement, upon which shines 
no sun, and through which runs the river of sadness, 
gloom, and despair.* 

“ It looks hard to human judgment that it should 
be thus; yet such a condition is consistent with the 
nature, character, intelligence, and wisdom of the 
Lord God. If a creature of his hand prefers to take 
care of himself, he is allowed in the end of his trial to 
reap the reward of his choice. ‘ They that sow to the 
wind shall reap the whirlwind.’ Because a man is 
merciful, a creature of time, and created under moral 
conditions to suit your world gives no illustrative 
proofs of the character of God toward the defiant and 
incorrigible who have wasted their opportunity. In 
any character of employment how could the Lord 
God trust those who will not yield him obedience? 

“Orphanos, look upon your world. Is it not a 
planet that gives torment to millions of your race? 
How came it so? and who suffers these conditions. 


ERUDIA. 


229 


this torment? The Lord God made your world, and 
he suffers these things. If he is such a merciful 
Master of the universe as some, and even many of 
the citizens of your world imagine him to be, why 
does he not make haste and correct the ndoral condi- 
tions of your world? But such is not his nature, 
such is not his character. Orphanos, it is enough for 
your race to see the present condition of your world, 
and learn from it the lesson that if such a condition 
is allowed of the Lord God for time, may it not be al- 
lowed, and even in worse condition, for eternity? 

“ Your race physically are adapted to no other 
planet than that upon which they live. All others 
have too much light or too little; too much heat or 
too little; alternations of day and night and of the 
seasons too long or too short; fruit not of the right 
kind; gravity too strong or else not strong enough; 
and yet man knows that he is going and shall soon 
make an exchange of worlds. He will find things 
either adapted or un adapted to his happiness and 
comfort. What of those who cared not for the Lord 
God? Will they now in this perilous time expect him 
to care for them ? 

“All will ride out on the wind of their moral gravi- 
ty and reach a place accordingly. The gravitation 
will be according to the life, to rest or misery, to 
heaven or hell; for the law of the universe in the ex- 
change of worlds is for better or for worse. There is 


230 


ERUDIA. 


no amending the nature, chargpter, ways of the 
Almighty. 

Fashion. 

“Whoever rides on the wings of qualified piety 
will find the gate of entrance to the eternal city open ; 
but they will not have traveled through the nets 
which the silly fashion of your world has set for the 
upright. Fashion is a dangerous precipice in your 
world, and whoever falls over it finds great difficulty 
in regaining the lost summit. An exchange of 
worlds, if for better, must be a flight from the summit 
and not from the groveling things of fashion that lie 
over the precipice and around the base. 

“Those who are seized with the spirit of fashion 
more than with the spirit of right progression are the 
rubbish in the way of righteousness, and the dead 
weight on the car of reform. God’s messengers will 
clear the way of all rubbish between your world and 
that which is brighter, and ere the passengers begin 
to climb the heights toward the everlasting city they 
will clear the way of all dead weight. Orphanos, let 
your race beware of the pits dug and the snares set 
by the fashion of your world. 

Every passenger in the exchange of worlds leaves 
behind every thing except his character. It matters 
not whether the exchange was made from the summit 
or from over the precipice, he goes shrouded alone in 
the character he has built. The gravity of your 


ERUDIA. 


231 


world holds every thing else. What a spectacle do 
angels behold of things left behind and over the prec- 
ipice. How unrespectable will the neglected, ragged 
dress of many be when they go out to meet the 
great Judge who looks not upon the bonnet nor upon 
the paraphernalia of the dress of this world! 

Drunkenness. 

“ But perhaps the greatest evil in your world, and 
that which stands most against right progression is 
the love and excessive use of intoxicating drinks. 
So much needs to be said against this evil that full 
time could not do it justice. A drunken, reeling world 
can be endured by the Almighty only through his 
love and tender mercy toward the sober. They are 
the salt, and while they do not keep down putrefaction 
they give your world that respectability before the 
Lord God that saves it from premature judgment 
and disaster. 

“Were it possible for mercy to reach the more 
vicious grades of men and save the criminal of your 
world, the greatest stretch of her arm would be to get 
beneath the drunkard. Drunkenness is the most pro- 
lific stem of evil that afflicts your race. It brings 
wife and children to want, and destroys their respect- 
ability. It destroys the estate that might otherwise 
be made profitable in the Lord’s kingdom. It inflicts 
on children a moral inheritance by which their 


232 


ERUDIA. 


chance for a profitable and useful life is of less de- 
gree. It lays the foundation of general crime, and 
by reflex action stultifies the moral nature, degrades 
the reason, and destroys the judgment. 

“Orphanos, labor to steer your world out of this 
miry ground of slime-pits. There are no drunkards 
on the track of right progression. When your race, 
should your world ever be so fortunate, reach general 
rest and happiness, and then pause, look back, and 
consider the ground over which they traveled, they 
will see that the lowest ground of sorrow that ever af- 
flicted your world came through intoxicants. 

Lust for Gold. 

“Orphanos, what shall be said against the inordi- 
nate lust for gold now in your world? This is the 
ground of much oppression and unrest, and troubles 
more hearts than any one evil. If a man’s heart were 
touched with sympathy in proportion to his gold, it 
would not be so bad a thing to love goM. But sym- 
pathy is weak in the comparison. Many know how 
to acquire, but few know how to sympathize and 
give. Comfortable is he who receives, but happy is 
he who gives. The earth is the Lord’s, and they who 
possess it shall give an account of the use they have 
made of it. 

“Let your race remember the story of the young 
man that went to the Master seeking eternal life, but 


ERUDIA. 


233 


Lis great possessions were in his way, and he would 
not remove them from the way of righteousness and 
receive the eternal life offered him. He saw the day 
that this sorrowful disobedience was the greatest 
mistake of his life. Let them remember Iscariot, who 
betrayed the best friend your world ever had for gold. 
His soLil became so burdened and grieved that he 
cast away his life in madness. 

“Let your race open their eyes toward the north 
and south, toward the east and west and see the thou- 
sand evils that rise from the lust of gold; let them open 
their ears and catch the secret sounds that fill the air; 
and when they have both seen and heard enough let 
reason and a right spirit enter the judgment-seat and 
teach how to righteously use the Lord’s money and 
carry your world forward in right progression. 

Faith. 

“For strength, for righteousness, for peace, for 
liappiness faith gives the greatest increase. It may 
become universally strong, and yet there are powers 
at w'ork in your world which, unless they are checked, 
will so far destroy faith that the germ remaining will 
be left to the fostering care of another age. 

“The man who exerts the greatest influence for 
moral good in your world is no mean creature. It 
matters not in what way he accomplishes his work, 
whether immediately upon the people, or by his faith 


234 


ERUDIA, 


and the power he has with God, he is in either case a 
strong man in your world. He may not be regarded 
as intellectual in the judgment of worldly wisdom, 
yet he is a strong man in your world. If his faith is 
foolishness in the estimation of the worldly wise, he 
sees equal foolishness in worldly wisdom. 

“Verily a man is not weak because he believes. 
Faith has nothing to do with intellectuality any fur- 
ther than ability to understand. Man may be intel- 
lectual or otherwise under human ideas, but the 
intellectual cannot have stronger faith than others. 
Intellectual power is as nothing before God; it is 
simply a human power. Man seeks too much to 
cultivate the intellect and let the heart take care of it- 
self. Far better would it be to cultivate the heart, and 
this will give a condition that will care for the intel- 
lect. Let it be the chief business of your race to cul- 
tivate the faith they have until without an attending 
doubt it becomes as clear as the crystal sea, and of a 
strength that cannot be broken. 

The Tongue. 

“ But, Orphanos, the tongue is the most unmanage- 
able machine in your v/orld. It is small but power- 
ful; it can do both the smoothest and the harshest 
work. It plays between the widest poles of love and 
hate. When tamed it is the gentlest of all things; 
when untamed it makes dreadful havoc of the peace 


ERUDIA. 


235 


and happiness of your world. Do your race want 
peace, let them watch the tongue. Do they want 
rest, the tongue must be tamed. Do they want 
right progression, then guards must be placed 
over the speech. An untamed tongue is incompati- 
ble with right progression. 

The Great Kule. 

“ The great rule of doing unto others as we would 
they should do unto us is the center of all right man- 
ners in the business, intercourse, and relations of 
your creation, or of any intelligences to be found 
anywdiere in the universe. The people anywhere 
who have followed this rule have never failed of 
right progression and final happiness. 

“Orphanos, do your race keep the rule? Do they 
respect it? Are you not all of one blood? Are you 
not brothers? Then why not keep the rule? Will 
the color of the skin be an apology in the day of 
judgment? Because some do not keep it, can that ex- 
cuse others? 

“ When your race learn to keep this rule your 
world will be happy. All right principles and all 
right government will grow out of it; indeed, half of 
the law of your world will then become dead statutes. 
Though much calamity should still remain in your 
wwld, still the people would be happy. Though dis- 
ease and death should not flee away, yet contentment, 


236 


ERUDIA. 


joy, peace, and rest would fill your world. It might 
not be as complete as that of created intelligences 
who have made higher development, and have risen 
above the accidents common to your world, yet it 
would fill your world with a day bright enough to 
thrill every heart and raise a song of joy in every 
hamlet. 

“ I will now pause to tell you a great truth: your race 
should cease to look so much to an exchange of 
worlds for happiness and rest. Of course it will be 
there for the righteous. But may it not under the 
march of right progression be in your world? Let 
the thought rest here, and use the means provided 
and now so beautifully shining from above. Apply the 
great rule. 

The Poor of This World. 

“ ‘All things whatsoever ye would that men should 
do to you, do ye even so to them.’ What a rule 
for right progression and happiness! If practiced, 
what a comfort it would bring to the suffering poor 
of your world! The care of the poor, their comfort 
and happiness, rests upon the practical execution of 
this great law. Those in want, the poor of your 
world who have been so much neglected, should be 
more cared for. Does not the rule say it? 

“They are thousands; they need a better chance; 
they cannot rise under present conditions and pres- 
ent opportunities. Let your race remember that they 


ERUDIA, 


237 


are very unequal in ability. Those endowed with 
greatest ability should care for more than self; other- 
wise there is no charity; and if no charity, there can 
be no righteousness; and if no righteousness, there 
can be no right permanent progression; and if no 
right permanent progression, your world cannot hope 
to attain to general rest, peace, and happiness. 

The Great Book oe This World. 

“Your great book is the teacher of your race. I 
can add nothing to it; I can take nothing from it. 
It is open. Bead it, let all read it; believe it, let all 
believe it; obey it, let all obey it. It is a great favor 
to your world. 

“ Should the sun be withdrawn and cease to shed 
his light upon your world now made so beautiful by 
his presence, your race would groan and lament the 
calamity falling upon them. His return would be a 
day of great rejoicing. For generations your race 
would be happy under a feeling of contrast, and why? 
Because light is better than darkness. 

“ Should the light of your great book be eclipsed 
from your world, the moral darkness would be great. 
Your world would be filled with the spirit of search- 
ing without ever finding, of bridging without ever 
planting pillars of support on the other shore, of 
planting without ever reaping, of legislating without 
ever progressing. A high appreciation of your great 


V 


238 


EEUDIA. 


book is necessary for tlie progress, peace, and ulti- 
mate happiness of your world. Disregard not its 
lessons of wisdom. • 

A Sabbath for This World. 

“Orplianos, your world cannot afford to gi7e up its 
Sabbath. You must have a consecrated time to find 
relief from business and the cares of the world, and 
carry the thought into the sublimity of the nature 
and character of the Creator, the wonderful things he 
hath wrought, the honors due unto him, and indulge 
religious meditations and worship that soften the 
heart, and keep it in the ways of righteousness, and 
give renewed qualification to press forward the Lord’s 
work in the spirit of right progression. 

The Farewell. 

“Now, Orphanos, I bid you farewell. Yours is a 
beautiful world. It is small compared with some, 
but. has received great favor from the hand of the 
Lord God. It may become very beautiful in morals 
and righteousness. It will finally get the victory, 
but the signs of the times indicate other defeats be-, 
fore the most beautiful day. Final triumph is cer- 
tain, but not until worldly wisdom has been driven 
into its last ditch and, broken-hearted, met with in- 
glorious defeat; not until the simplicity of manners 
growing out of a pure heart shall be established. This 
token I leave with you, and may it cheer your heart!” 


ERUDIA. 


239 


Orphanos received the token, which was a beautiful 
little box, looked at it, and on looking up, lo! Erudia 
had gone. 

He went home not without cheer, but with a heavy 
heart. He had learned what was necessary to make 
his race happy, and his world morally beautiful, but 
he would never see the beautiful and pure-hearted 
Erudia again; at least, not until through improve- 
ment under grace he should be raised to a plane of 
great purity, and allowed to play among the revolv- 
ing worlds, in willing obedience and duty at the will 
of the Master. Orphanos resolved to be a better man. 

He could not rest, for he had received a token, a 
beautiful gilt box. Upon the golden lid it was writ- 
ten : “ When you feel weary and care-worn look with- 
in.” As soon as he returned home, feeling •sveary 
and anxious, he opened the box, and a wonderful 
scene opened upon his view. 

It was a large city, clean and beautiful. All the 
people appeared busy, but without hurry and confu- 
sion. No filthy person was to be seen anywhere, and 
no one in bad dress. There was no foolish ornamen- 
tation, and all saluted each other in friendship. All 
were polite, and all received necessary attention from 
the others. There was variety in the architecture of 
the mansions, yet one did not esteem himself above 
another. A white scarf hung variously over the city, 
and on it was written: “All things whatsoever we 


240 


EliUDlA. 


would others should do unto us, do we even so unto 
them.” 

“Beautiful city, beautiful city!” soliloquized Or- 
phanos in astonishment, “ and yet it is the possibility 
of my world under right progression.” 

Orphanos now discovered that the box had differ- 
ent plates; he therefore raised another, and behold! 
a beautiful, clean, and well-cultivated country opened 
upon his view. The people were all neat, well-clad, 
and seemed very much to love one another. No one 
appeared on the scene drunken, weak, tired, dis- 
tressed, or neglected. 

“ Beautiful country, beautiful country ! ” said Or- 
phanos, “and such as this world may become under 
right progression.” 

Orphanos now became very anxious to view all the 
scenes that would open upon his vision by the plates 
of the box. He tried to raise another, but found it 
fastened very tight. In his effort to raise it he la- 
bored so hard that he awoke. 

A more astonished man does not walk the earth 
than Orphanos when he awoke and found himself on 
his bed and the day dawning. As soon as he could 
collect his thoughts from a world of wonderment, he 
said: “I will arise and find some ready scribe, and 
let the world know the thoughts that came upon me 
in a single night, if, mayhap, it may help my race oh 
the way of right progression.” 











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